»Award-Winner of the National Flute Association's Newly Published Music Competition« The Blocki Flute Method Book 1 is an award-winning method designed to the give beginners an excellent foundation in beautiful tone, embouchure flexibility, rhythm and technique. This comprehensive and step-by-step approach was written to ensure success and also includes theory and composition projects. The method is designed so students can play in both octaves without having to read the notes in both octaves. This is an incredibly important aspect of teaching beginners. The Blocki Flute Method's unique approach to teaching Five-Note patterns has proven to consistently help even the youngest students develop exceptional technical abilities. Five-note patterns are used as the foundation for teaching new notes, technique, moving between beat levels, simple transposition and fun and easy ear training. Because of the combination of a systematic approach to note reading, fun composition projects, ear training games, and basic theory, this book is also an excellent supplementary book for Suzuki students. As of August 2010: The Blocki Flute Method has been completely updated with the Third Edition. Listen to Samples Katelyn After One and a Half Years of Lessons - YouTube Video What's New in the Third Edition? After using the method for over 10 years, we knew which pieces the students loved and which one were just "okay." Anything that was just "okay" has been replaced with kid tested exciting pieces. There are many new duets and since students love trills we've included many more. These trills have transformed boring octave exercises into motivating pieces such as Half Pipe Stunts, Trampoline Tricks, and Bungee Jumping A's. Other new favorites include the Yankee Doodle Theme and Variations, The Sad Singing Swan, and the Daring Detective.

The award-winning Book 2 has been carefully designed to be versatile, so that it can be used after any beginning band method book. Each of the six key-based units (beginning with B-flat major) opens with a foundation page to be used throughout the unit, which includes scales, arpeggios, finger exercises, a flexibility exercise, and trills. Next, a new rhythm pattern is introduced using our "fill in the note value" approach to ensure correct understanding and execution. This method of teaching has been highly successful, especially with students who have had difficulty learning new rhythms. Each unit provides much systematic review so that the students can master the new rhythms and techniques. Often students learn to play a rhythm pattern in a piece, but cannot sight read that same rhythm in a new piece. This is like teaching students by rote to read "The Cat in the Hat" and then having to start all over when they pick up "Are You My Mother?" Our goal is that the students will quickly become excellent sight readers. Other features in this 97-page book include an abundance of duets and rounds, theory projects, transposition exercises, and composition pages. One of the most unique features of this method is the inclusion of the many composition projects which allow the students to be creative and "think outside the box" but, at the same time, to teach the basic concepts of music theory. Parameters are given as guidelines, and then "the sky's the limit!" After two years of sorting through thousands of melodies, only those that would both systematically help students to master new techniques and make students excited about practicing made it into the book.

To play the flute with a clear and convincing sound depends on the understanding of the physical concepts required to make the instrument sound without using undue force and applying just the right amount of physical help where needed. Edmund Raas has explored and taught these fine-points for over 60 years. Born in Switzerland, he has been influenced by the teachings of Emil Niosi (pupil of the great Georges Barrère), Hugo Haldemann, Jean-Pierre Rampal and Aurèle Nicolet. Besides teaching, he had the opportunity to play solo concerti and act in many chamber music groups including Renaissance and Baroque music on period instruments. From 1977 to 2005 he also acted as first flutist in the Municipal Symphony Orchestra of São Paulo, Brazil. Since his retirement from this orchestra he is pursuing a career as composer.

Abracadabra Flute has become a classic in the market, and here is a brand new edition. The cover has been redesigned, the music re-set, and new illustrations commissioned. Some new material has been added, supplying extra help where new notes are introduced and reinforcement exercises for tricky corners. As well as the new edition, there is now a CD available. Performed by professional musicians, it demonstrates each piece on flute with piano accompaniments from our book Abracadabra Flute Piano Accompaniments, enabling the pupil to hear how the pieces sound. Such a CD is invaluable for ensemble experience, and offers all the fun of playing with an accompaniment - perfect for home practice and concerts alike.

Blocki Flute Method Book 3 is an advanced method book designed to thoroughly prepare students for studying advanced literature. This fun and challenging book helps students master the extreme octaves in a systematic method. 1) By the end of the book, students will be able to play all major, natural and harmonic minor two octave scales and arpeggios in less than 8 minutes. 2) Each unit is packed with rhythmic exercises systematically presented to enable students to master new concepts. The 2nd ed. includes systematically learning advanced rhythms and includes quarter note triplets. Though this book contains several etudes in each unit, it serves as a bridge to using the standard etude books and solos. 3) Each unit contains an abundance of duets. Many of these duets are based on the original flute parts from famous orchestral scores including: Capriccio Espagnol's Fandango Asturaino, , Wm Tell Overture, Carmen's The Mountain Garden and Habenera, Pictures at an Exhibition: The Great Gate at Kiev, Brandenburg Concerto no. 4, and Sousa's Stars and Stripes. Other duets include the Mozart Flute Sonata no. 5, pieces from Kabalevsky's opus 24, Boccherini Minuet, La Gioconda, and the March from the Nutcracker. 4) An abundance of tone and technique practice throughout all octaves of the flute. This book is appropriate for advanced junior high and high school students and as a remedial book for college students. It also provides excellent and challenging sight-reading material for the advanced college flutist. Students will learn standard literature such as Stars and Stripes, The William Tell Overture, and etudes written in duet form.

The book begins with flexibility exercises and begins with having the ability to easily bend pitches. Planning to Play in Tune offers a variety of exercises that will not only develop this flexibility, but also greatly improve core tone quality. The "Full Spectrum Tone" exercises use the concepts of polyphonic singing and apply them to flute.The Just Tuning System is explained in the second section of the book. Learning to hear difference tones is a key element of playing with excellent intonation in an ensemble. It begins with exercises that help to zero in on these quiet tones and progress to using the difference tone as a reference for being in tune. A variety of methods of training ensembles is given in the third section. I use these faithfully for warming up flute ensembles and find them to be highly effective.Of course, one the most difficult aspects of playing in tune involves the use of dynamics. An entire section of the book is dedicated to progressively mastering the art of playing in tune when tackling extreme dynamics changes.The final section applies all the concepts to the famous flute solo in Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. The harmony is discussed so that flutists are well-informed of how to listen and adjust pitch while playing with the orchestra.