If we're not actively making things better, chances are we're making them worse.

- William Westney

Much music teaching seems more concerned with controlling the student than with encouraging the student's own impulses.

- William Westney

Don't attribute mishaps to a lapse in concentration - if you missed the note you don't know it.

- William Westney

Mistakes are . . . immensely useful. . . they show us . . . where we are right now and what we need to do next

- William Westney

The reason so many of us lose our bearings about practising early in life is that we practice in living rooms with other family members in earshot - …

- William Westney

Music, the most abstract and uncanny art, is an eternal river of sound moving through time. We can free ourselves from whatever may be holding us bac…

- William Westney

Learning itself is a fulfilling adventure at all points in the process. In fact, psychologists have listed learning as one of the basic, universal jo…

- William Westney

[perfectionism leads to] a tendency to apologize preemptively for one's efforts, knowing from experience that there's sure to be something wrong with…

- William Westney

When the good student chooses the honest path, free of perfectionism and faking, music study becomes something refreshingly new: a calm oasis of self…

- William Westney