Disqus - Latest Comments for thomasjwest

Re: Enough About Me! #15habits

thomasjwest — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 20:24:00 -0000

Thanks for the shout-out, Lindsay! I've been on a necessary hiatus recently, but I'm working my way back into regular blog-writing now. Should have a new article out tomorrow.

Re: All Clinics Great And Small: Why The Best Learning Opportunities Aren’t Always At The Biggest Festivals

thomasjwest — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 21:46:44 -0000

Thanks for writing about our Winter Workshop! I can affirm what Shawn said about the aca pros - all you have to do is ask. Barry Carl found out about our event because I invited him to our Facebook event page! Tom Anderson also was very enthusiastic. All you have to do is ask, and if they have the time and availability, many aca pros are willing to help "spread the Gospel".

Re: Barry Carl: Heart Music

thomasjwest — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:01:16 -0000

Interpreting a song and bringing its emotional content forward is the hallmark of a consummate musician. Making a fun song fun is the hallmark of a great entertainer. Occasionally, we manage to do both.

Re: Sing, Dammit!

thomasjwest — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:23:13 -0000

Once I graduated from college with a music ed. degree, I started directing and teaching and stopped performing. For a decade. I wistfully thought on occasion of those days in my college wind ensemble, my college a cappella group, my college chamber singers. It wasn't until I found my way into a community aca organization that met summers only that I got back into performing again. I realize now that with all of the great things I do in my music classroom, I NEED to be performing myself. It keeps me thinking creatively, stretching my skills, and learning new skills. I'm planning to go to my first CASA festival ever this summer, and I already know the result of that weekend is going to fall in the "why the hell did it take me this long to get here?" category.

Re: New Banner Graphics on Our Web Page!

thomasjwest — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:46:47 -0000

Testing the Disqus comments app on @keystonevocals website.

Re: Music Discussions From The MPLN – January, 2012

thomasjwest — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:42:44 -0000

Nice idea to highlight #mpln posts on a regular basis!

Re: Printable Practice Chart

thomasjwest — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:37:30 -0000

Your Practice Chart image is making the rounds amongst my music colleagues on Facebook. I did a quick blog promotion for you here: http://www.thomasjwestmusic...

Re: A Very Web 2.0 PMEA Music Conference At Hershey

thomasjwest — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:52:08 -0000

Both my spring concerts were this Monday and Tuesday, and after being on the road last week for PSSA's and out of town all weekend, I'm exhausted! Unfortunately going to skip PMEA this year, but looking forward to seeing what Andy and crew share (if I can keep my eyes open).

Re: STN Weeks 6-8: End of Secondary

thomasjwest — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:15:47 -0000

The one thing that has been consistent in all of the schools I've taught in, no matter how bad or high-achieving the school is, is that I have made great relationships with great students. Many I still keep in touch with on Facebook. There's nothing that beats that direct connection to your students.

Re: Time Management

thomasjwest — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:23:14 -0000

Thanks for the mention. Another good time management tip I just picked up from Mark Burke at ViaAcademies.com is to group tasks into hour chunks. When you wear many hats (like I do) and have many simultaneous projects to accomplish, avoid getting bogged down by only doing an hour's worth on each project. Force yourself to "put a bookmark in it" and go to the next one. Also, eliminate time wasters as much as possible (really, how many times can you NOT check Twitter and Facebook). Good luck with grad school.

Re: Follow Along with the Student Teacher’s Notebook

thomasjwest — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 18:57:20 -0000

Best of luck on your student teaching placement. Will definitely be following along on your posts. Wish I could've crowdsourced when I was doing it!

Re: Where is MENC? A look at Glee, The Sing-Off, and the history of music education broadcasting

thomasjwest — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:11:50 -0000

The reason "The Sing Off" doesn't buy into the typical "human freak show" MO of most reality TV shows is because of the show's producer Deke Sharon. Deke wants "The Sing Off" to be a vehicle to increase contemporary a cappella's audience while maintaining the simple fact that singing a cappella requires a high degree of musicianship, skill, and savvy. The judges are instructed to make their commentary constructive and supportive. I heartily support their efforts.

There are some at MENC who are beginning to wake up to the potential of the Internet in expanding our profession. The future of public education of all kinds is a blend of on-site and web-based classrooms.

Re: New Years Project 2011

thomasjwest — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 09:04:23 -0000

What a fantastic idea! Today's music ed majors are so much more likely to participate in something like this than people my age or older.

Re: Music Education… Is this truly for me?

thomasjwest — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 08:37:23 -0000

Hi Sari. Welcome to the team, and by that I mean Music Education!

I started college as an Engineering major, mostly because I was smart, got good grades, and like physics in high school. According to my dad, music was something to do for fun, not build a career on because then it becomes "work." It was obvious by the end of my first semester that I was in the wrong place - all of my spare time was spent in marching band rehearsals, hanging out in the Music Building lobby, and pledging Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity.

Once I started as a music major, I wasn't sure what kind of degree I wanted. Perhaps I could teach? Would I be any good at that? The answer came while on a bowl trip with the Penn State Blue Band - it was a moment of epiphany after marching the halftime show on the way to the airport when I realized "THIS is what I want to do with the rest of my life! But I can't march forever - how do I stay involved? TEACH!"

I went on to discover that coming summer that I was pretty good at the teaching end of it to, but that's another story.

Welcome aboard to the staff of MusicEdMajor.net. I look forward to reading your perspective on things!

Re: A Big Day For Me And Mercer County Tomorrow – Jr. High School County Band

thomasjwest — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:27:50 -0000

Nice program! Conducting honors bands is a good gig. Break a leg!

Re: PLNs For Music Educators And Online Professional Development

thomasjwest — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:37:31 -0000

Note to all presenters, make sure you close your tabs to the Cover It Live blog BEFORE you start your session! Call it a Web 2.0 sneak attack (completely unintentional, of course). #metos2010

Re: Leadership Announced At The Music Education Professional Learning Network

thomasjwest — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 07:57:39 -0000

Happy to be a part of this great team. Looking forward to seeing the direction MPLN takes in its inaugural year.

Re: A Sample Curriculum For High School Instrumental Ensembles

thomasjwest — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:35:40 -0000

This is exactly the kind of "core repertoire rotation" that the music ed faculty at Penn State taught me. There's no doubt that anyone who becomes a proficient player in a concert band should be exposed to literature of this depth and variety.

The challenge here, however, is that many high school band programs have situations where this level of repertoire just is not programmable. I have never had a high school band program that could technically handle something like "Flight". Many of the other great choices on this list were simply not programmable because of a lack of full band instrumentation.

This is where the "Teaching Music Through Performance In Band" series of books and CDs is indispensable. So many great repertoire choices for middle and high school band programs to choose from ranging from grade 2 all the way up. I made many successful programming choices over the course of years with those books, and I even kept the 3 year cycle even though I taught a 6 year jr./sr. high band because the young students got a second chance at it as the section leaders.

Thanks for this post, Joe. Judging by the length and detail, I'm sure it took you a long time.

Re: http://www.justine-dolorfino.com/post/975666591

thomasjwest — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:48:04 -0000

You're both silly. I like it.

Re: Dr. Pisano To Keynote At Michigan This January (MMEA)

thomasjwest — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:31:30 -0000

Congratulations on this honor! Well deserved. I hope you will be able to influence a whole new audience of music education professionals!

Re: iSchoolBand.com - The Music Education Network - Blog - How to Learn Music Properly By Michael D Griffin

thomasjwest — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:03:26 -0000

This article draws many of the same conclusions that I have discovered in my own personal research of modern neurology and how it affects music learning. I agree that most performing music programs never teach their students how to practice or how to think meta-cognitively. I have several articles written on mental rehearsal, building neural networks through slow, successful repetition, etc.

As science begins to understand how the brain functions with new scanning technologies, we as music educators need to pay attention and apply those findings. Excellent article - I'm going to link to it on my blog.

Re: MusicPLN Is Officially In BETA!

thomasjwest — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:12:26 -0000

So far so good. The Music PLN website is going to be a fantastic resource with so much collaborative potential!

Re: SoundTree to Sponsor LiveBlog From Music Ed Week

thomasjwest — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:18:29 -0000

This is great! I live so close, and yet that weekend is out for me. :-(

So cool that Jim is helping out - as I found out at PMEA, getting a wi-fi signal at a conference center can be a tricky proposition.

Looking forward to reading all the great content!

Re: On Athleticism & Musicianship

thomasjwest — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:58:15 -0000

Music performance and sports performance use many of the same skills and same parts of the brain. Procedural memory (aka "muscle memory") is a key component of both (and of dance).

Culturally, the lines between sports and music in schools have been blurred over the past 20 years with the rise of girls sports teams. Not long ago, in an American high school, each fall you were either a football player, a cheerleader, or you were in the band. If you couldn't make the cut onto the football team, or you weren't right for the cut onto the cheerleading squad, the marching band was your only other option if you wanted to be involved on Friday nights without just wandering the track.

Now, with varsity sports for just about every sport you can image for both male and female athletes, band programs in many distrcts (especially smaller ones) are forced to share students. Despite the amount of talented students who "do it all", the traditional stereotypes still persist. This has everything to do with movies like "American Pie".

Disney has been making a concerted effort to break down or reverse traditional stereotypes in a lot of their programming. "High School Musical" is built on that very premise.

We as adults are also guilty of perpetuating the old stereotypes. Why in the world do schools even still have a Prom? How many people know what "prom" really means or how they got started in American schools?

All the more reason why innovation in education is needed now more than ever.

Re: Music Education Personal Learning Networks and Twitter ~Free Webinar In June!

thomasjwest — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:03:44 -0000

Promoting the heck out of this. Can't wait.