Thomas J. West Music

The following article is a guest post from Elaine Hirsch, who has contributed to TJWmusic.com on several previous occasions.

New software and the rise of the Internet have made it easier than ever for artists to earn money with their music while gaining an audience and improving their sound. There are many online tools now available to music...

Even before the final strains of the December Winter Concert float into the air, I am already contemplating repertoire selection for my spring concert. Choosing concert repertoire is one of the most important decisions that the director of a public school performing ensemble has to make. Y...

As my regular readers are aware, I teach at a unique school. It is a performing and fine arts center that is a program offering of a K-12 cyber charter school. Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School currently has about 2,300 students statewide. They receive their education on school provided PC's using primarily Moodle,...

The following is an article written by guest author Elaine Hirsch.

Online social networking platform Google+ is catching the attention of educators thanks to highly intuitive features like Circles, Sparks, and Hangouts. Stanford University researchers have considered creating Circles for their

Yesterday, I presented and attended sessions at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association District 12 In-Service Conference at Valley Forge Christian College in Phoenixville, PA. District 12 encompasses public and private schools in Philadelphia, Delaware, and Chester Counties. In this article, I will include bullet point items that are take-aways ...

Tomorrow, I will be presenting at the PMEA District 12 In-Service Conference at Valley Forge Christian College in Phoenixville, PA. This is the same presentation I did last spring for District 3, but it's been updated with the latest information available.

You can view the Prezi presentation and all of the resource videos and handouts I will be using on this

Today, I read a blog entry entitled Unseen Music on the J.W. Pepper blog. It describes the fascinating story of The Ohio State School for the Blind's marching band program.

While...

In this era of policy-makers demanding accountability in our public education system, high-stakes testing (student test outcomes tied directly to school funding sources), and teacher accountability, the performing and fine arts are pushed even further to the side than ever. Despite efforts to demonstrate the value of perform...

My school has a professional development plan that I particularly enjoy. Based on the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching, our faculty sets professional development goals for themselves for each marking period and reports on them to department chairs. The goals can be on...

This year, I purchased Noteflight Classroom for my school as part of my professional development goal to create a fully