Thomas J. West Music

It's amazing to me how my attitude stacks the deck in my favor and seredipity is the result. Back at the end of April, Hal Leonard Books was promoting the newest version of Janet Horvath's monumental book Playing (less) Hurt. They had a little contest on

In my formative days as a clarinetist in high school, not a word was ever said to my band about practicing scales (or praticing much of anything, for that matter). We warmed up on a Bb Major scale and went straight to the business of learning our concert music by simply repeating it over and over with no rehearsal techni...

If you started learning how to play a band or orchestra instrument in an American elementary school, you probably had the experience of having to fill out a practice chart. You know the one - you have a grid with 7 blocks for each day of the week and a spot for your parents to sign. You are supposed to write do...

The modern metronome is an indispensable practice tool for musicians of any level of experience. Digital metronomes are readily available from any music retailer, as an app for your iPhone, or other online metronome websites.

Most student musicians and...

Human perception is a fascinating thing. We do not sense what is actually "out there", we sense what we think is there based on our previous knowledge and beliefs. Two observers can see the same object and get two completely different experiences from that observation. For example, if I look at a famous painting, such as a Monet, I can admire it for its interesting use of color, blending, and proportion. I could then go and study the life of Monet, find out when he painted the work I had view...

How many times in your life have you heard someone say, "I can't do it. This is too hard!"? It is practically the battle cry of any struggling student in any subject area. It is the mantra of those who were raised in a culture where success and failure continue to be taken personally. When I inevitably have a student tell me that a song they are striving to play on their musical instrument is too hard, I always g...