Abracadabra spells 'excellent instrumental tutors' and the Abracadabraapproach to learning through songs and tunes has set countlessbeginners on a clear path of progress and enjoyment with their choseninstrument. Now in a third edition, Abracadabra Woodwind has a fresh and contemporary new look and extra new CDs to play with. With additional teaching material - and with nothing left out from theprevious edition - Abracadabra Oboe now has two CDs specially createdto make the aural learning experience engaging and accessible.

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.

A pupil's tutor on playing the clarinet. This second edition is redesigned and revised, and contains new material, giving extra help where new notes are introduced and at tricky corners. There are new illustrations and re-set music.

The material in the Gekeler Method for Oboe is divided in two parts. The studies in Part I are for the purpose of developing musical style and interpretation; those in Part II are for the study of scales and intervals, and for improvement of articulation.

To breathe well means to breathe free of tension, and oboists who breathe well create a resonant tone quality. The Breathing Book provides concise information about breathing alongside etudes and activities encouraging application of this knowledge in musically meaningful ways. The Breathing Book teaches the truth about breathing, establishing a reliable foundation for improved resonance, articulation, endurance, and tone quality.

"Purpose is to place the musical and technical study of the oboe within the context of a precise understanding of the human body" --Foreward.

'The first time around these pieces were not widely heard or read. A roomful of festival-goers in Sydney or Penang or Ballarat could well have heard me hold forth on the subject of Enid Blyton, say, or kissing, it’s true, and a few of my newspaper articles – my feuilletons, as I’m calling them – may have caught the eye of some readers of the Byron Shire Echo some years ago. It’s not that these audiences were unappreciative, but they were limited. Nowadays a podcast can attract an audience of tens of thousands around the globe, while I performed for the most part in more intimate spaces – these were entertainments, so to speak, for un-known friends.' No festival organiser, newspaper editor or publisher who has worked with Robert Dessaix is likely to have escaped a request for copies of his wonderful, fleeting talks and short works, or feuilletons. These ephemeral pieces — including an overlooked short story ('not my usual genre, but [it] is also a performance, after all, a turn, a numéro, about love’) — are the work of a conjurer whose words dazzle, then seem to vanish almost as soon as they arrive. They are collected, and often annotated, for the very first time in Abracadabra. From the wonder of learning foreign languages, to ‘the words I wished I’d said’, Abracadabra is brimming with the thoughtful, witty and humorous observations for which Dessaix is known, and proves, once again, that his way with words is equally magical on the stage as it is on the page. Part memoir and personal record, Abracadabra is a work many years in the making, an engrossing collection of observations and ideas which remind us why we read: for pleasure, after all.