YOUNG musicians need all the encouragement they can get these days; it isn't easy to knuckle down and study an instrument amid the distractions of telly, videogames, the Internet and goodness knows what else. So it's good to see a book which has been put together with as much thoughtfulness, pragmatism and sheer sense of fun as Atarah Ben-Tovim's The Flute Book (Random House, £12.99 in UK).
It's on a ringbinder format so you can fold the pages flat when playing, but inside a hard cover so the rings don't get squashed if placed inside a crammed music case; it contains marvellous tips ("Think of your flute teacher as a coach who explains what the problems are and how to overcome them, but remember that the real work has to be done by you, the player, in your daily training sessions..."); it has a section where you can fill in all the details of your own particular flute in case it gets lost or stolen, advice about buying a good quality instrument, a history of flute playing through the ages and an explanation of why James Galway insists on being called a fluteplayer not a flautist (the "flaute" hasn't been around for hundreds of years, he says).
I particularly like the pages of career information, which steer the anxious young player away from a play or teach or else mindset towards a broad range of options including backstage work with an orchestra, the recording and broadcasting industries and - if, as often happens, you have a couple of spare languages at your disposal as well as your musical abilities - a job with an international festival organisation.
And did I mention the accompanying CD? A clever mixture of the heights of musical achievement as exemplified by Marc Grauwels, who makes some mouth watering sounds in a programme of Gluck and Rossini with the Symphony Orchestra of the Belgian Radio and the Walloon Symphony Orchestra, and the humblest of beginnings, with tuning notes, simple melodies and some piano accompaniments which you can play along with. A wonderful, inspirational little book.
