No comments about Breeze Easy Flute, Book 1 (Breeze-Easy).

5 comments about Shakuhachi Meditation Music: Traditional Japanese Flute for Zen Contemplation.

1. This is a wonderful CD to help calm the mind and body. Two CD's for that price is a bargain. I listen to Stan Richardson on the shakuhachi quite regularly when I am doing yoga or just quietly reading. Highly recommended (from a fellow shakuhachi player in Japan).



2. The flute music is very peaceful. Sometimes flute music can sound dissonant or have quick & sharp note changes, but this CD set is meditative without any awkward moments. The flute flows like a river: with slowly changing notes and simplicity. It is like a soaring bird catching an air stream. I especially like listening to this music during shiatsu (finger pressure medicine) or a good massage.



3. Not melodic, nor does it carry much of a tune but it is rythmic, quieting and soothing. Great for yoga, before bed or after a loud day's work.



4. Zen - that's how this music feels - calming, peaceful, challenging, complex. I frequently use public transportation to work, I have loaded these CDs on to my mp3 player for a relaxing meditative ride each morning. Beautiful.



5. This CD is excellent for sitting meditation. I would recommend it to anybody who likes to meditate with music. There are several cuts with times that are appropriate for standard mediation sessions.

1 comments about The Song of Six Birds.

1. Beautiful, bright illustrations, and a nice story. My son especially liked hearing (and imitating) the calls of each of the birds. If you see this book, grab it!

No comments about Elementary Method Flute or Piccolo (Rubank Educational Library No. 38).

2 comments about Medieval & Renaissance Music for Flute (Book & Audio CD).

1. This is a great book! I definitely recommend it. The songs are fun to play. They also range in difficulty, from very simple tunes to more complicated ones.



2. This book is an interesting anthology featuring 41 pieces which can be played without accompaniment, and ranging through all difficulty levels, though I found most of them to be easier to play after listening to the CD and knowing the tunes by heart.
   Some melodies have slightly odd or changing tempos while they are played, and having a CD is of great help to understand the tunes and how they are to be played.
   Most of the melodies are recorded with accompaniment, and on the music sheet the chords are indicated if you are fortunate enough to have someone play with you who can read chord symbols.

2 comments about Disney Solos for flute.

1. The CD doesn't match the music, which for a beginner is very important. I would recommend this more for a 2-3yr player than a beginner. The Disney Piano book was actually better for my 1st year violin daughter (plus it has the words!)



2. I'm a flute teacher with a large studio, and use this book occasionally for sight-reading. My students enjoy playing something familiar. I agree with the other review that it is not a book for first year students. The range is quite wide, and the rhythms are not simple. The key signatures are true to the original, so several flats are common.
   
   I played through it myself when it first arrived. The CD is accurate to the book. It offers the choice of accompaniment with or without the melody, which is helpful for learning. The band accompaniment is less "cheesy" than some out there. It sounds like live as opposed to synthesized instruments.
   
   A very nice collection of familiar tunes.

No comments about JAZZ FLUTE SCALES LEVELS/GRADES 1-5 BOOK.

1 comments about Flutes of Fire: The Indian Languages of California.

1. Flutes of Fire is a collection of essays dealing with California Indian languages. The 22 essays are interesting, educational, and fun to read. Two of my favorite essays are "Upriver, Downriver: the Vocabulary of Direction" and "A Pinenut by Any Other Name." You'll be amazed at how much information and enjoyment you get out of this book

1 comments about The Flute (Yale Musical Instrument Series).

1. A thoughtful, thorough history of the flute. Perhaps a little too narrowly focussed, as the flute's history included relevant interactions with other woodwinds, none of which are mentioned. Does not say enough about the flute after 1960, and could use an expansion of the material on such topics as the pccolo, alto and bass flutes--this is a serious deficiency. Not quite as thoroughly referenced as other volumes in this series, but generally this meets an adequate scholarly standard. There are some formal idiosyncracies which the author accepts. Despite its weaknesses, this is the current "definitive" history of the flute. Well recommended, and not too costly!

5 comments about The Tin Flute (New Canadian Library).

1. Shortly after it was published, The Tin Flute surprised Canadian readers and was soon widely read and enjoyed internationally. Its author, Gabrielle Roy, reached out to an audience with eloquent, flowing prose, by describing the very depth of the human condition through the Lacasse family.

   Briefly: the main character of the novel is the oldest Lacasse child, Florentine. Her poor family, residing in the slums of Saint Henri, Montreal, rely heavily on the wages she brings in as a waitress. Rose-Anna, her mother, struggles to care for her growing family and struggle through tragedy, while the father, Azarius, is unable to maintain a job. Florentine's life is turned upside down when she meets a handsome man named Jean, an affair that is doomed from the beginning. A crushed Florentine turns to Jean's friend, Emmanuel, for his love, although she cannot return it, as she is still torn over her feelings for Jean. In the original French, it was entitled, "Bonheure d'occasion" which cannot be perfectly translated. However, the English title of "The Tin Flute" is very suitable and expresses the message of the novel from the smallest Lacasse child, Daniel -- his only great desire was to have a shiny tin flute, a symbol of all that he would never be able to call his own, in a poverty-stricken existence.

   With this groundwork, Roy paints a convincing and enthralling portrait of an impoverished family, troubled love, and mixed ideals in the midst of World War II. It is a novel well worth reading and will leave you with new insight into the human condition and the brutality of poverty. Although some phrases are lost in the translation to English from the original French, the translation is highly successful in being as nearly as effective as the original.

   For related themes (although from very different perspectives & times) you may also wish to explore Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.




2. I purchased this novel for the purpose of completing my B.A. Degree. This book was required in a course for french canadian literture. I have read it in both in english and french. The works of Gabrielle Roy has won three Orders of Canada prior to her death. This book was also considered for the Noble Prize in Lit. on several occasions. It is a powerful novel of the multiple forces that work against people of poor socio-economic status. It descrbes, in detail, the lives of a poor working class family in the industrialized St. Henri district of Montreal at the onset of WWII. Although the characters are fictional, the situation and circumstances of their lives are quite real. The novel has been defined as an example of the realist genre and personifies the era very well. The most interesting aspect of the novel is not the obvious elements of poverty like crime, lack of education and illness but the mental and emotional suffering of its victims. One may judge the actions of the characters harsely but this would be unfair. One must appreciate their situation and thereby feel compassion for them. It is a good story.



3. I haven't read the book but I 've seen a couple of series of
   the movie. I like the story but I LOVE the soundtrack.
   Does anybody know where can I find it??



4. It's really too bad that Canadian authors aren't publicized more in the U.S. I bought this book from amazon-canada because I wouldnt have known what to look for. It's won several literary prizes in Canada and is well deserving of them. The story of a French-Canadian family during the depression and early years of WWII in Montreal, it portrays a world that no longer exists. In this country, the people would have been Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation. The differences between then and now were phenomenal. Men joined the Army to put food on the table. They looked everywhere for honest work, even part time or temporary or low-paying. They didn't join gangs or deal drugs. People weren't afraid of each other, even in the worst neighborhoods. Yet their lives were unbelievably hard. There was high infant mortality. A child with leukemia was doomed. Landlords put whole families out in the street when they got behind with the rent, often due to unemployment. The war ended the depression, but some of the characters ask themselves if it's worth the price, or if peace as they knew it was any better. The author wrote this book at the time it took place, in a city she knew. It could have easily been set in Detroit or Chicago, London or Dublin. There is a universal quality to this story, that gives a vivid picture of the times. The book isn't cheerful, but it's also not hopeless. At the end you don't know what will happen to these people, but they have a chance. A really moving story.



5. I had to read this book for a course. Haven'y finished it yet but its really good so far!! :)