Thomas J. West Music

In this new age of transparency thanks to the Internet, regimes in the middle east have crumbled, skeletons are coming out of closets, and many situations that were "don't ask, don't tell" in the recent past are no longer socially acceptable. The more public your life and your work are, the more of a responsibility ...

While sharing a few articles with the Facebook Band Directors PLN today, I saw the announcement that W. Francis McBeth had passed away.

Read Southern Music Company's Announcement HERE

McBeth had a long and pro...

I was a middle school and/or high school band director in public schools in central and southeast Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey for the first nine years of my teaching career. I still teach middle school and high school instrumental music, but I no longer am directly involved on a daily basis with a marching band and concert band program.

Separation from that lifestyle has br...

I love when things like this happen.

Out of the blue on Twitter, I get a message from Dave Frank, a jazz pianist from New York City, inviting me to his new online jazz master class on YouTube. It's a 54 minute tribute to his teacher, famed jazz pianist and jazz educator Lennie Tristano, including two...

During a car pool with another judge this past weekend, we were discussing rehearsal techniques for marching band programs. One of the techniques my colleague had used extensively while learning or teaching drill is "drill in reverse", when the performers turn around and march the drill set the same number of counts back to the previous set. H...

As a marching band director, I spent the first eight years of my career trying to transform small, unsupported band programs into something worth doing. Simply performing at Friday football games did not give my students a pattern of skill development I wanted them to experience, nor an event where their efforts were respected. Unfortunately, there were little ot...

Over the past four years as I have written articles for my website, I have given long and careful thought to just about every aspect of music education. I have shared things from my own experience in the inevitable on-the-job training all music teachers go through as they start their careers. I have also shared many articles on practice tips and the me...

The Hot 5 is a dixieland quintet of faculty and alumni from Bringham Young University that performs classic New Orleans-style jazz. This video of the group playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" for a group of cows in rural France is making the rounds on Facebook right now and is quite charming.

This ...

I have a rather large number of incoming saxophonists to my school this year, so I was looking for a YouTube video to post on their class Moodle page. This one is smokin' hot! It was recorded live at Yamaha's Artist Service Center in New York City on October 8, 2005. The performers are the Capitol Quartet. It's a great demonstration of the various common sizes of saxophone, plus for those of us who know be bop, there's a nice little quote in the middle you may recognize.

As marching band programs across the U.S. are entering or finishing their pre-season rehearsals, drill writers are getting their personnel lists finalized and putting pencil to drill pad (or mouse to software) to create the visual package for their fall shows. Drill writing is typically not something learned in great detail at the undergraduate level...