Describes what woodwind instruments are, the various types, and what makes each one unique.

This book is designed to guide saxophonists of any genre towards achieving their ideal sound. Not only will pursuing this aspiration result in a more beautiful and powerful tone, but it will also promote virtuosity in other areas of technique such as the ability to execute technical passage, extending the range of the saxophone to four octaves, and widening the palette of available tone colors. The guiding principles for reaching these goals are taught in this book as are corresponding specific exercises to help efficiently achieve them. Accompanying sound clips are available at: www.benbrittonjazz.com/completeapproach "This is a terrific book on an often neglected yet integral part of saxophone playing. I recommend Ben's book to every serious saxophonist." --Walt Weiskopf Editor: Victor Pinto, New Orleans, LA Cover Photophrapy: Frankie Withers, Annapolis, MD

Get in tune with woodwind instruments. Discover how woodwind instruments make music. Explore how different woodwind instruments are used around the world, from the recorder to the Indian pungi. This book includes an activity that lets you find out for yourself how musical instruments make sounds. Questions that reinforce key concepts are a great feature of this book.

Fine bassoon teachers are a rarity in all but cities with major symphony orchestras and/or a university with a distinguished music department faculty. William Spencer took up the challenge of providing material for the serious bassoonist with The Art of Bassoon Playing, published in 1958. With William Spencer's approval, Frederick Mueller took on the task of bringing to notice recent changes in bassoon playing, pedagogy, and manufacture, resulting in revised edition of The Art of Bassoon Playing.

The Woodwinds: Perform, Understand, Teach provides comprehensive coverage about the woodwind family of musical instruments for prospective instrumental music teachers. What sets this book apart is its focus on how to teach the instruments. Preparing students in the how of teaching is the ultimate goal of the woodwind class and the ultimate goal of this book, which organizes information by its use in teaching beginning instrumentalists. In developing performance and understanding, pre-service teachers are positioned to learn to teach through performance—contrasted with an "old-school" belief that one must first spend much time tediously trying to understand how things work before playing the instruments. The book is organized in three parts: Preliminaries, Teaching the Instruments, and Foundations. Chapters in Teaching the Instruments are organized by instrument (flute, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon) and, within each instrument, according to how an effective teacher might organize experiences for novice learners. Basic embouchure and air stream are covered first, followed by instrument assembly, then hands and holding. Embouchure coverage returns in greater depth, then articulation, and finally "the mechanism," which includes sections on the instruments of the family, transposition, range, special fingerings, tuning and intonation, and reeds. In Foundations, topics are situated in big picture contexts, calling attention to the broad applicability of information across instruments.