Thomas J. West Music

If you are a high school band director in the U.S., you most likely have had to take an active role in recruiting and retaining students for your band. There are many obstacles and roadblocks that discourage students from joining or remaining in your program. It goes without saying that having a strong feeder program at the elementary and middle school leve...

It's hard to believe that it has been less than a week since the official launch of the Music Professional Learning Network website. In the first five days, membership has grown to nearly 300. That's a hundred more than the projected goal of 200 by October! More importantly, the conversations within the groups' forums are dynamic, detailed...

My website has been in existence about six years. For the first three, it was simply a home for my band compositions. Three summers ago, I shifted focus and began writing articles about how modern neurology relates to music learning and sharing my own experience wit...

Over the three years that my website has been publishing articles, I have written many special topics on music learning and how modern neurology is providing powerful information on the way we master a musical instrument. I have also done more than one article on

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

It's finally here - the website that is the collaborative creation of some of the most innovative and forward-thinking people in the Music Education profession. This is the final two weeks of beta testing for the Music Professional Learning Network - a social network for music teachers, music education undergra...

Leave it to Jim Frankel and SoundTree to be the first on the scene to offer an entire day of music education and music technology professional development conference online for FREE!

The event is called ...

It has become quite apparent to me that American Music Education as a profession has never been in a better position to reach more students and affect the fabric of our society. It is also quite apparent that if Music Education as a profession does not seriously innovate and begin reaching more people, public school music education will be marginalized and eliminated from school systems all over the coun...

Every once in a while, a piece of art finds its way in front of you that just strikes you to the core. Today is one of those days for me.

While working at my desk, I was listening to recordings from one of my favorite contemporary composers, Eric Whitacre. He made a big splash recently with his

As we approach the end of the 2009-2010 school year here in the U.S., I find myself to be a teacher who has been totally transformed. Talk about professional development! I never thought I'd be teaching music without being a band director. I never thought I wouldn't be directing a marching band program somewhere. And yet, here I am, with...