My teacher suggested that I might like to look at some flute technical study books which, according to him, are more tuneful than oboe ones.

Since all the flautists on here seem to think Trevor Wye is very good I wondered if he would be a possibility or if his exercices regularly go up to the top of the 3rd octave. (I am supposed to have learnt up to 3rd octave Ab and can play comfortably up to 3rd octave F#).

If you can get hold of a library copy (as it's very expensive) I'd look at Taffanel and Gaubert's Complete Method for the flute, or the 17 Daily Exercises which are contained within the method and also published separately. These don't use the high notes of the flute anywhere near as much as the Wye exercises (or the Moyse exercises a lot of his are based on).

I have an omnibus edition of the Trevor Wye practice books for the flute. I wouldn't neccessarily call them tuneful but they are very focused. He tends to have patterns that work in a narrow range and are then repeated a semi-tone up or down, so they are easily adaptable to go up as high (or not) as you like. I've used a few of his "technique" exercises on the oboe where I've had fingering problems and found them quite useful. I don't know if I would have bought them just for the oboe though. these are more exercises rather than studies so your teacher maybe thinking of something else.

He couldn't remember the name of the person he was thinking of. He said he hasn't used them himself for years and has never had a pupil who is keen on technical exercices and studies before (don't know if I should take this as a compliment or not ). I was assuming, perhaps wrongly, that they weren't by a French person and that was why he couldn't remember the composer's name.

He said he would see if he could find the book for next week but he moved house about six months ago and apparently some of his little used music is still in boxes. I thought if I came up with a few names it might jog his memory.

Names to try him with: French ones first (the technique books for flute ARE mostly French; Wye's book is based on these) Taffanel and Gaubert; Marcel Moyse. Apart from those, Boehm is the next most likely, I would think.

Thanks. I will try all those with him on Wednesday.