Thomas J. West Music

After a twelve month hiatus, I am pleased to present a new podcast with a great new interview.

In this episode: John Thirkell is a professional trumpet player who has performed with Level 42 and artists such as Tina Turner, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Elton John, and Bon Jovi. He is the co-founder of Pure Solo, a website service that provides accompaniment recordings for a wide variety of music for users to record their own performances and share them via social media. John describes his career as a professional player, the inspiration that lead to the formation of Pure Solo, and how it is being incorporated into school systems in the UK as an educational tool.

Tom and John discuss Jamie Aebersold's jazz books, the similarities between Pure Solo and Smart Music, the difficulty of negotiating international intellectual property rights, the organizational systems of public education in the UK and the United States, and how Pure Solo is particularly well-suited to individualized assessment of music students, particularly as a tool for choral directors and music teachers in cyber charter schools. The podcast runs 48 minutes.

Listen to this new podcast HERE