Thomas J. West Music

Many times as teachers (and as parents) we feel we are communicating our expectations to young people clearly. Many times we are, but it simply hasn't been said enough times.

Or maybe, we need to make sure that our intended audience is paying attention.

Many times as teachers (and as parents) we feel we are givi...

Some friends of mine on Facebook are passing this image from the infamous Failblog site around. It is, as this site has thrown into the internet vernacular "full of WIN".

As a music teacher of a performing ensemble, I have had the experience of an audience member disrupting the mood of the concert with ...

Today, a student at my cyber charter school that I've never spoken to before sent me the following internal instant message:

Hi Mr. West,

I wanted to know what your opinion is about students listening to music while doing school work? I asked one of my other teachers and she told me that you would probabl...

This morning, I made two discoveries while reading through recent tweets on the #musiced hashtag on Twitter. The first was a BBC Radio 3 program called Music Matters. Music Matters is BBC 3's flagship classical music program, being only one of a large number of

Productivity is where it's at. You can have a million fantastic ideas and be involved in dozens of worthwhile projects, but it's only the ones that reach completion and get out into the world that matter. Productivity has to include what you need to do in all facets of your life. Most adults in America (and elsewhere) wear many "hats" fo...

This apparently is a topic that wants my attention. It keeps landing itself painly in front of me.

With the recent press about the young man who committed suicide because he was publicly disgraced by his roommate using a remotely controlled web camera in their dorm room, I wrote an article two days ago about...

In my years of teaching, it is a comment I've heard come up many times from many different teachers: "Teaching would be great if I could just work with the students and never have to deal with their crazy parents!" For many teachers, calling parents is the "last resort" when dealing with a challenging student. I was one of those teachers until recently.

The band boosters at my first teaching job were the reason that there was still a band program for me to get hired for. Their advocacy helped me get band put back on the school day by the end of my second year there. Band parents organizations and other parent support groups for school music offerings can be extremely strong advocates for your program. They ...

This past Monday night, the topic of the weekly #musedchat on Twitter was "How can schools with no funding for the arts incorporate music?" One of the tips suggested by several band directors on the chat was putting an ad in the local paper to get community members to donate unused instruments, a practice I have done before myself with some success. Band D...

One of the greatest parts of being a member of a high school marching band is developing the feeling of being part of a community with a common purpose. Fellowship in shared experiences is what builds personal bonds that last a long time. Marching bands tend to spend a lot of time together both in and out of the classroom. Most marching band programs have some kind of prepar...