Copyrighted in 1971 by the Zen-On Music Publishers Co. of Tokyo, Japan, the Takahashi Flute School (part of the Suzuki Method,) was designed to aid beginning flutists in their journey to become professional. It is set up as an individual practice method book, with obvious references to a needed listening source, but never gives one. Takahashi's method is to teach fundamentals via elongated paragraphs and step-by-step instructions on how to properly handle, hold, and play the flute. This is followed by a very short section of exercises intended to aid in the text portion of the book. At the very end is a small fingering chart, for a reference of those notes new to the student.
             In my opinion, this book would not be a successful tool for a beginning flutist. The first half of the book is completely read-only, whereas Takahashi has assumed that by reading such the student will understand and formulate his/her own way of playing. For a student new to music, text-only is very difficult to comprehend, especially when there are words that both the child as well as the parent may not know. This is coupled by the fact that the original book was written in Japanese, so the translation into English is a bit shaky at times, and can be difficult to understand for its lack of continuity of structure. The second portion of Takahashi's book is the music section. Here seventeen short exercises are offered. Again, I would not use this method for a beginning student. In no place during the second half of the book is there an explanation on how to do any of the music written in place here. Therefore, on the whole, this book would merely be a supplement to a second year or rapidly exceeding first year student, but definitely not the sole source.
             In introducing his techniques, Takahashi first explains the Suzuki method, hoping to clarify his ways of going through the beginning intricacies of flute playing. He fully believes that ...