Young Musician's Survival Guide Featured in NAMM Bookstore – Amy Nathan’s Book for Budding Musicians Wins Parents’ Choice Honors– CARLSBAD, CA

Music is fun, uplifting and enriching, but no one ever said it was easy. Taking up an instrument can be especially tricky for kids, who have to contend with schoolwork, performance jitters and the occasional crisis of confidence before blossoming into accomplished artists. Author Amy Nathan speeds to the rescue with her new book, The Young Musician's Survival Guide: Tips from Teens & Pros, (Oxford University Press, 2000) which NAMM-International Music Products Association will proudly include in its online bookstore, available at www.namm.com.

The Young Musician's Survival Guide covers topics from how to choose the right instrument (and when to switch if you’re not satisfied) to making your concert debut, and everything in between. Time pressure, peer pressure, practice boredom and equipment shopping are all addressed.

"Learning to play an instrument is intense and exciting, but can also be a lonely pursuit for a kid, because if you want to make progress, you’ve got to put in a lot of time alone practicing," Nathan explains. "There’s not much opportunity for kids to share tips with each other on how to solve some of the common problems they all face." "There are even fewer chances for kids to find out how professional musicians deal with those same problems," she adds. "I set out to provide a forum in my book for musician-to-musician sharing."

Nathan’s book has been named a Fall 2000 Parents’ Choice Approved non-fiction book by the highly selective Parents’ Choice Foundation, a group founded in 1978 to help parents choose materials for their children.

Nathan, the author of several well-received books for kids, illuminates her subject with first-person advice from renowned artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Paula Robison, James Galway and André Watts, each of whom describes his or her own experiences as a child musician.

She gives equal billing to real-life experiences from teenage musicians in youth orchestras and other prestigious programs around the country. Her previous works include Surviving Homework (Millbrook, 1996), The Kids’ Allowance Book (Walker, 1998) and Everything You Need To Know About Conflict Resolution (Rosen, 1999).

"The book is for all kids who are learning to play an instrument, not just those who hope to be pros," Nathan notes. In fact, some of her celebrity interviewees, like cartoonist Gary Larson or NBA star David Robinson, are spare time musicians known for talents other than music. "This can give kids encouragement to keep playing even if they realize they’re not destined to become the next Yo-Yo Ma."

The Young Musician's Survival Guide is available in bookstores nationwide, via Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com, and in NAMM’s own bookstore at www.namm.com.

NAMM is dedicated to helping today’s kids become the musicians of tomorrow, and Amy Nathan’s wonderful new book is a valuable tool for anyone who’s just starting out," says NAMM President and CEO Larry Linkin. "In researching this book, I found that there’s a real continuum in music, from the struggling beginner to the polished pro," Nathan adds. "All musicians deal with many of the same dilemmas. Strategies that pros and older teens have hit upon after years of effort can also work quite well with a young beginner."

For more information, or to obtain a copy of Amy Nathan’s book, write NAMM-International Music Products Association, 5790 Armada Drive, Carlsbad, CA 92008; telephone (800) 767-6266; or visit the World Wide Web at www.namm.com.

Top