Jonty Tunes for Flute and Piano

This is a great set of little pieces, which have clearly been written with teaching in mind.  They use key signatures found at Grades 3 to 5 and make extensive use of scale and arpeggio patterns, alongside other technical and musical aspects at this level.

There's a helpful set of hints and questions for each piece at the front of the book, guiding students to think about tonality, structure, details and both musical and technical features of each one.  Fun titles help to encourage players to think about different characters and styles - from the hopping March Hare to the soaring My Kite. There are a few jazzy pieces - I particularly like the jazz waltz The Polka Dot Rainbow as a lovely introduction to this style.

One Day makes very effective use of chromatic patterns and has some definite fingering challenges for players at the more advanced end of the range.  Going G-A-G-A and All at Sixes and Sevens are brilliant for learning about and practising the use of both harmonic and melodic minor patterns within the same piece.  Other pieces make a feature of particular intervals, and a couple have very clear progression through the circle of  of fifths - another useful learning point.

All the pieces use a variety of articulation, from a mix of slurs and staccato in the easier pieces, to tenuto and marcato markings in some of the more complex ones.  This is really helpful for introducing different types of articulation and encouraging precision in playing them.

Most of the piano parts are reasonably straightforward - always welcome if you're a flute teacher who is "not really a pianist"!  There's even an easy version of the accompaniment to the last piece - the mischievous "Here! Kitty, Kitty .." which quotes from Rossini's Cat Duet.  Players are encouraged to listen to the operatic duet and play around  with rubato in this one, again exploring  aspects of style and musicality in a fun way.

Whether you're  preparing for exams or not, this book provides a good resource for learning  and reinforcing lots of skills and knowledge at this stage, and I was impressed at just how many of  these aspects had been included in twelve short pieces.