Travel with Jessica to the Sonor Factory!
This year, I was fortunate to be able to travel to Germany to tour the Sonor Orff Factory – one of the birthplaces of the elementary instruments we know and love. If there is a single takeaway from my visit, it is the care and dedication of the Sonor team to create...
Summer Care and Feeding of Orff Instruments
You’ve made it to the end of the year, you’re packing up your classroom, and you’re wondering how to keep your Orff instruments safe in storage for the summer. Sound familiar? Let’s talk about Orff storage! First, and easiest, is to keep those instruments from being...
How to Get Started Teaching pBuzz
How to Get Started Teaching pBuzz You’ve heard about pBuzz, the innovative classroom instrument that helps elementary students learn basic music skills, including important lessons in using air, pitch differentiation and tone generation. You’ve even heard that it’s...
Teaching with pBuzz checks all the boxes for teaching basic music skills!
Have you heard of pBuzz? It’s an important musical tool that your elementary students can play! Learning pBuzz checks off nearly every learning style – including aural, visual, and kinesthetic – and does it in fun and engaging ways. pBuzz is a wind instrument but,...
Bring the Thunder! Start an Affordable Classroom Drumming Program with Bucket Drums
Whether you’re trying to outfit for your music classroom with drums on a tight budget, or you’re looking for a new classroom percussion activity for your music students, Remo Rhythm Lids and West Music 5 Gallon Buckets are an ideal solution. This combination can...
How to Choose the Right Case for Your Guitar or Ukulele
As a music store employee, one of the things that pains me the most is seeing a customer carry their guitar in for a repair without any sort of protection. They then spend their hard-earned money for a repair or restring, only to carry their instrument out of the...
The Best Guitars, Ukuleles, and Banjos for Beginners and Advancing Musicians
Working at a music store, one of the most common questions customers ask me is which guitar or ukulele will give them the best bang for their buck. Specifically, they want to know if there’s a brand or model that will give them the best quality, sound, and features...
Your Guide to Affordable Classroom Percussion
In my classroom, I had what most teachers have: a random assortment of hand percussion selected by someone many years ago. A few cowbells, some jingles, a strange number of sand blocks, you know the drill. Hand percussion is such a valuable tool for the elementary...
How Not to Get Played When Buying a Musical Instrument
Vitamins, bed pillows, car tires – I’ve ordered all these things online in the past year. The convenience and speed of buying online just makes sense for some things – but not everything. Case in point: musical instruments. A few years ago, a guy came into our...
Pro Tips for Choosing the Perfect Ukulele
Pro Tips for Choosing the Perfect Ukulele In the market for a new ukulele? There are countless options to consider. But which features should be your top priorities? What makes a difference in tone, longevity, and overall quality? And all those extras – which ones are...
How to Expand Your School’s Music Program with Prop 28
It’s official: with Prop 28, your music program budget just doubled, tripled, maybe even quadrupled. But after years of limited funds and making do with what you have, where do you even begin? You’ll save oodles of time if you work with a one-stop shop that has...
Everything You Need for a Spooktacularly Musical Halloween
We love our spooky books here at West Music! These top halloween books make perfect additions to your classrooms during this season of fun! Before we dive into books, we invite you to watch this video featuring Ryan West demonstrating how puppets and spooky sounds...