Thomas J. West Music

Category: Miscellaneous

A Unique Performing Arts School is Looking for a New Home

Posted by Thomas J. West at 11:12 PM on January 14, 2010

The unique performing arts school I work for is looking for a new home. It's a happy problem to have - we're bursting at the seams with students at our current location in West Chester, PA.

The school is an offering of the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, a K-12 cyber school. Students take their coursework from home via web-based lessons. For those within a two-hour drive of West Chester, students may audition to enroll in classes at the CPFA beginning in 5th grade. The students spend two days a week for an entire school day taking classes in music, art, drama, and dance.

The middle school students (grades 5-8) also experience a course called integrated arts, where an area of focus is explored by all four disciplines. This year, our theme is "The Italian Renaissance" and to finish the year, the middle school students will be staging the masquerade ball scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Students will be assigned roles as actors, dancers, musicians, or will help the art department make masques for the dancers and actors to wear during the performance.

The high school students do exceptionally brilliant work. The art shows each semester are amazing, the theater department puts on five productions a year (two middle school and three high school, including an original murder mystery script written by center director Mark Allen), and the music graduates are auditioning for prestigeous music schools such as Berklee, North Texas, the Frost School of Music (U. Miami), etc.

If anyone among my readership knows of an available building in the Greater Philadelphia area that can fit the following needs, please let me know. The building can be in a corporate park, a former school building, a former church building, a former anything. We're looking for:

An auditorium or 1000 sq. ft. large room with 20 foot + ceilings for theater, music, and dance performances
Two large rooms, preferably with dance floors, mirrors, and bars already installed
Two large rooms for instrumental and choral music rehearsal space and storage
One kitchen/cafeteria/dining area
Rest rooms, preferably with a locker/changing area
Classroom-sized rooms for 2D Art, 3D Art, dark room photo, digital artlab, music keyboard lab, general music/guitar, acting, and tech theater
5-10 office rooms
1-5 practice rooms
Storage for props, costumes, bric brac, etc.
LAN ethernet ready

Any assistance or leads would be greatly appreciated. A big welcome to the new readership that has joined my newsletter list over the past two months.

Follow Friday: Music Tweeps to Follow September 4th, 2009

Posted by Thomas J. West at 09:08 AM on September 04, 2009

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Here are a few new musically-related folks that I've had some great chats with on Twitter recently:

MeLikeGoodMusic @MeLikeGoodMusic has a really cool website where he features a song by a different underrated artist daily. He spans multiple genres and styles from hip hop to broadway. We've had some cool chats about show tunes in particular.

Gae Phillips @gphilli is a 6-12th grade band director from Columbus, Kansas. He is one of the growing number of music educators who are joining the cyber age. His band website is a great resource for his students and even instructs them on how to use Twitter to learn new things. We've been swapping band director war stories!

Alex Choral @AlexChoral is the official Twitter home of the Alexandria Choral Society of Alexandria, Virginia. They are a community adult choral organization and just had their auditions for the new season recently. I've had fun following their process and giving them some tips on how to get some sound clips on Twitter using TweetMic.

It was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with Andy Zweibl @Zweibz7 online somewhere. Andy is a Music Education major at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. In addition to his own website, Andy also blogs on MusicEdMajor.net and somehow manages to find time to manage the UM Band website, be president of his school's CMENC chapter, and meet all the requirements of a Music Ed major (which are hefty, folks). Andy is one of those aspiring music educators who has already embraced social media as a way to network, learn, and discuss music teaching with other music educators everywhere. I'm looking forward to following and sharing regularly.

More music tweeps next week. Thanks to these folks for chatting with me and sharing their experiences.

Music Monday: What I've Learned During My First Month on Twitter

Posted by Thomas J. West at 09:28 AM on August 24, 2009

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I joined Twitter on July 25th after much resistance to the idea. I was first introduced to it by my some good friends who are computer programmers. They've been on board with Twitter since nearly the beginning, when it was mainly for cubicle monkeys who are on the computer all day as part of their job. When they introduced it to me originally about two years ago, my initial reaction was, "What a time sink! That seems pretty pointless. Who wants up to the minute updates on what I'm having for lunch?"

Since then, Twitter has exploded and now that I'm on board, it's easy to see why.

Hyper Social Marketing

Twitter enables anyone who has anything that they want to bring attention to online to build a targeted list of followers who are interested in what they want to bring attention to. The 140 character limit makes you choose your words carefully, which means that there's less static to read. Unlike Facebook, where you have to have mutual friends, Twitter allows you to follow someone else without following you back, which means you can build a list of followers just like an email subscribers list.

With the ease at which you can insert web links and share links with anyone, and the amazing built-in, minute-by-minute search engine capability, it takes practically no time at all to find your niche market and begin sending them information they are interested in.

The Twitter Learning Curve

Like everything else in Internet marketing, it takes some time to find out how Twitter works, what tools already exist to help you, and how Twitter users function. Just spending these first few weeks on Twitter has taught me a lot. Here's just some of what I've learned in the past month:

People can search for any keyword, but using hashtags is a powerful way to get you attention (both welcome and unwelcome) very quickly.
There are lots of ways of getting hundreds of followers with zero effort, but few of those methods give you true "targeted" list, no matter what they claim. The best way I've found to get a targeted list is to simply search for a keyword related to your niche and start following people. Simple, effective, and high quality.
Every Twitter user has an "at" name. Mine is @thomasjwest. When you use their @name in a tweet, the person who is mentioned can track it and respond to you. All @names are also clickable, so it's another way for people to get to your profile page.
This was confusing at first: Originally, Twitter called its messages updates, but as Twitter's popularity expanded, the favored term is now tweets. There are still places where you see the word "updates" being used.
When you want to share something another person said or a link that they posted, you do a retweet. Retweeting is a great way of getting people's attention. There is proper etiquette to do so! First, you type "retweet" or "RT" followed by the person's @name, then their message or link. Because of the 140 character limit, it is acceptable to alter the original message to make it fit. Retweeting gets attention for the person you retweeted for, and often they will return the favor.
A person with 1,000 or more followers is called a whale. Bigger does not equal better, however.
Spammers exist on Twitter, too. When you get a follower who follows hundreds of people but has a very small following, and they have 5-10 tweets that are either links or nonsense, you've most likely got yourself a spammer. Some spammers open hundreds of Twitter accounts and use an automated third-party application to build huge follow lists to spam people. Twitter has strict guidelines about this practice and shut down spammers constantly.
Celebrity Twitterers register with Twitter and have a "verified account" so that you know it's really them and not someone pretending to be Ashton Kutcher.
Direct Messages, or DM's are private 140 character emails within Twitter between you and one other person. A lot of people will use it as a welcome message to new followers, or when they want to say something without the rest of their followers seeing it. It also is a popular way to throw a spam link at someone.
There are lots of great tools out there to use with Twitter. So far, I'm using TweetDeck, TweetLater, Twitter Analyzer, Twitter Grader, Twitter Karma, Screenr, and FileSocial. I haven't used them yet, but Twitpic and Tweetmic are probably going to find their way into my arsenal as well. All of these tools have a free version with a paid version with added features.

My Results After One Month of Using Twitter

Once I began really expanding my follower list, I broke the one-day record for visits to my website. I also am consistently getting a higher quality of visitor to my website. Before Twitter, I had about a 75% bounce rate (visitors to the site who remained on the site for less than 10 seconds). I have had several days the past week where my bounce rate had dropped to 45%.

More importantly, I made contact with some amazing people. @winkieflash inquired about my live online webcam music lessons and tried a free lesson with me (she's a flute player from The Netherlands!). I was also contacted by @MartinDeBourge with an offer to write a review for the Sing Clear vocal coaching product. I am enjoying working my way through the CDs and will write the reiview soon.

As I continue to refine my approach to Twitter, this trend can only increase.

My Golden Rules for Marketing with Twitter

Based on my year as an MLM business owner and my year of promoting this website, here are my guidelines for promoting anything using Twitter:

Anything that free takes a lot of time to build. On the internet, if it's free to use, you are leveraging your time in exchange for spending the money. Don't expect miracles, even in a week or a month, no matter what "lead generating system" someone tries to sell you on.
It's all about building relationships. Find people in your niche and then share. People who like what you have to offer will naturally share it with other people on their list who have the same interests.
Offer your followers value. Make what you tweet about something that is worth your followers' time and something that will interest them. They will be more likely to retweet it. If you have a lot to offer, tweeting great stuff every fifteen minutes will still turn people off (learned that one the hard way).
Take the time to find high quality followers. Some people swear by going to a Twitter directory such as WeFollow, selecting a keyword, choosing one of the top Twitter people on that keyword, and following their top 20 followers. This doesn't guarantee you good followers for a few reasons: the top 20 are the most recent followers, not the followers with the largest following. For broad keywords like "music", the chances of those followers being interested in your niche is low. Nothing beats using the search engine to find people talking about your niche right now. That way, you know they are active Twitter users and are more likely to follow back and retweet your content.
Use hashtags. Hashtags allow new people to find things they're interested in and follow you.
Use quotes. People love to retweet quotes. Find some quotes about your niche and tweet them. Be sure to follow @SteveRamirez and @twuotes who retweet quotes that use the #quote or #quotes hastags.
Have a good profile page. Twitter gives you a very simple profile page that is the only way for people to find out who you are.Make sure your bio is interesting and full of keywords. It amazes me how many people don't have a website listed either. Twitter allows youto upload a customized wallpaper. Pro Twitter users have wallpaper with pictures of themselves and additional ways to contact them. See my profile page for an example.
Follow successful social marketing people. You are known by and learn from the company you keep. I suggest people like @nhangen, @tomduong, @davidrisley, @problogger, and @craighcollins

What Works For You?

So, I'd consider my first month on Twitter to be a success. Twitter is definitely worth my time to continue to work with as another way to promote my work. Until the day that I am further out of debt and able to actually sink some money into promotion, I continue to have to rely on social marketing and relationship building as the main tools at my disposal.

If you are using Twitter to promote a website, product, or service and have other tips and tricks to share, please leave a comment, @reply me on Twitter, or send me a message.

Great Performances: Bobby McFerrin, a cappella

Posted by Thomas J. West at 10:03 PM on August 11, 2009

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This quite simply is the result of an incredible natural abilitycoupled with a rich body of knowledge in all styles and forms of music.Superb!

Talent is a Four-Letter Word: What You and Michael Jackson Have In Common

Posted by Thomas J. West at 10:19 AM on July 17, 2009

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There are many things in our society that are commonly accepted beliefs. Many of those beliefs discourage people from taking risks because of a false sense of personal vulnerability. The very way we think of certain words can limit our beliefs. One of those words is the word "talent".

When most people think of talent, they think of a person they know, whether personally or famously, who possesses a skill uncommon to the majority of society. Usually the word "talent" is used to refer to an exceptional athlete, artist, dancer, or painter. All of these areas of endeavor share a few common attributes - they are all demonstratable, they require a high degree of sensory and kinesthetic ability, and they all can be technically very complex.

Meriam-Webster Dictionary gives the following modern definitions of the word "talent":

The natural endowments of a person
A special often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude, or general intelligence or mental power. See "ability"
A person of talent or a group of persons of talent in a field or activity

The portion of this definition that causes the distortions in society's perception is the parallel drawn to the word "ability". The common assumption is that someone who exhibits fantastic ability in a sport or artform is automatically "talented" - endowed by their creator with abilities mere mortal men do not have.

A Case Study in Talent: The Late Michael Jackson

No one can deny that Michael Jackson displayed an ability to do miraculous things from an early age. As a singer, his rendition at age 10 of the Smokey Robinson song "Who's Loving You" was a clear indicator of not only his vocal skill but his ability to emotionally connect to the meaning of a song even if he hadn't experienced the contents of the lyrics himself. As a dancer and songwriter, he channeled inspiration directly from the same source that geniuses like Mozart and Beethoven did. I remember vividly watching Michael describe and demonstrate in improvisation the process he went through to write music and choreography, and it was stunning.

With all of that dazzling ability, many people don't realize the countless hours of work and rehearsal Michael and his brothers spent perfecting and polishing their performances. If you've ever been to a live concert and seen a famous performer have an "off night" you know what a disappointment it is and how it can affect their popularity. Performers of all kinds - musical, athletic, and otherwise - always have to be at the top of their game, and that requires consistent practice to eliminate as many variables as possible.

What do you and I have in common with MJ? He loved music and performing. Our society has scared us away from our birthright to enjoy music firsthand. We have accepted a life where we experience music second-hand, performed by "talented people" in a music consumership. Why did we ever stop making music and start buying it from a supplier?

The Misconception of Professional Music

Once upon a time, people of all walks of life actually performed music themselves for entertainment purposes. There was no radio, no TV, no ipods, and formal music concerts were for the wealthy elite. People entertained themselves by singing folk songs, playing instruments, gathering around the piano, and so on. Music was enjoyed by many as an enriching hobby, and your ability wasn't nearly as important as your joyful participation.

As with most things in our culture, competition has led to a change in the landscape. While it is true that competition has pushed musicians to perfect their craft to the edges of the human being's sensory and physical capacities, it has also placed being a musician in the rarified air of the elite. Our culture, which respects and demands competition, has shaped music into a "you either have it or you don't" attitude. For a career in music, professional performers have to have a high level of natural aptitude and/or work ceaselessly on keeping their performance quality sharpened to a consistent, keen edge. If you don't have the "talent" to hang with the big boys, the best you can hope for as a professional music performer is a meager existence as a freelance performer or a studio musician.

Even organizations that once were for hobbyists have become increasingly competitive and eliteist. The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America was founded at the turn of the century as a club for men who love to sing barbershop quartet music - one of two totally American musical artforms (jazz being the other). Now called the Barbershop Harmony Society, the focus is on ever increasing standards of competitive vocal wizardry. The "common man's" ability to participate in the society has waned.

The entire drum and bugle corps and high school marching band art forms have taken a similar path. I have experienced the marching band artform from every possible viewpoint and style, and the gap between the "have's" and the "have not's" continues to widen. I have experienced and know what it takes to operate at that elite level as a member of The Cadets drum and bugle corps. There needs to be a place where musicians can strive for the outer egdes of what's possible, but it is being done at the expense of the masses. Back in the early 20th century, there used to be a drum and bugle corps organization in small towns across the country. They were founded by VFW posts, church groups, and even Boy Scout troops. They provided boys, and later girls, with positive character-building experiences and aesthetic appreciation of music.

Drum corps still does that, but alas only for a couple of thousand kids a year.

The drum corps phenomenon has inevitably influenced American high school band programs in both positive and negative ways. Never has the performance quality and ability level of our children been higher, and some very special musical moments result from that attention to detail. However, to compete with the elite, marching band programs have to perform music and drill at ever increasing levels of technical difficulty, which, along with other factors, has shrunk the size of the average high school band considerably. It is common for bands in my part of the U.S. to field a band with 25-30 of their most elite musicians in order to remain competitive with bands of a similar size. The large bands in my area who are involved in competition are predominantly from large school districts that insist on a mentality of "being the best." Meanwhile, the rest of the student body is left out - left out of music, left out of sports, and looking for a place where they can "be good enough" at something.

A Return to Balance

There are high school band programs out there who still service 9-10% of their student population rather than the elite 1%, and they continue to find ways to give their bands events to play for that inspire them to greatness without leaving out the "average" student. They are in the minority, and in many areas of the country, you either play the competitive game or there is nothing else for the band to do.

In this age of economic meltdown and budget cuts, many school music programs find themselves in a self-created predicament: the only way to justify continuation of the music program is by how they fare in the field of competition. This holds true for orchestra and choral organizations as well, but mostly for band programs, which are inevitably tied to football. Football is America's version of the Roman Coliseum, where comptetitive barbarism shines in all its glory. Band programs in America's schools tend to be the flagship program of the music department because of its visibility in the community at the high school football games.

How do we bring balance back to arts education? When do we study art for art's sake? When do we stop teaching our children that you either "have it or you don't"? When does it become culturally acceptable to dance, sing, and make art without being judged? When can music become a birthright again instead of a commercial commodity for music consumers?

Why do we accept that some people are just "talented" and "special" and the rest of us are "nothing special"?

"Talent" is a four-letter-word, in my perspective. It is a word that is a barrier for most, an ego trip for some, and a signpost that points to a false reality for nearly everyone.

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