Howard Roberts at a seminar organized by Johnny Smith (on bass) in Colorado Springs in 1969 or 1970 (picture from the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph). Thanks to Lewis Mock for this.

Music Education

Howard Roberts had a great interest in musical education. He wrote a number of books about guitar playing and also was well-known for his seminars. He was one of the founders of the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood, California and this has gone on to become a very famous music school now called the Musician's Institute. Below is provided some material concerning his activities in musical education.

Westlake College of Music

For some period during the 1950's Howard Roberts was an instructor at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles. Here is a portion of an article, concerned with Westlake, called "The Sankofa Tradition: A Reminder for the 21st Century" and written by Dr. Bob Morgan. The full text of the article can be found on trumpeter Marvin Stamm's website ubder Cadenzas.

Berklee opened its doors in 1945. The following year, a similar school was established in Los Angeles - the Westlake College of Music, founded by one Alvin L. Learned. The school was named after a park, Westlake Park, which was near its first location. Westlake is pretty much forgotten today, and that is precisely why I would like to discuss its existence.
However, there is not much information to be passed on. Of all the subjects being discussed, Westlake is far and away the one that has been researched the least regarding any information in print, on the Internet or elsewhere; but it was a very prominent school in the jazz world in the 1950s. Remember, the 50s was the heyday of so-called West Coast jazz, and a lot of attention was given to all matters pertaining to jazz on the Coast, especially Los Angeles, and this would include Westlake. I first became truly aware of jazz in the mid-50s. I would guess in junior high school and I can remember reading of both Berklee and Westlake in Down Beat, Metronome, etc., at that time. I can't say that Westlake was as prominent as Berklee, but I can attest that it was very prominent.
As I mentioned, Berklee and Westlake shared several similarities:
The general goal of establishing a true jazz conservatory.
Benefiting from the fact of the then-new GI Bill.
An emphasis on teaching the Schillinger System as a compositional technique.
I will share with you what I can relate as fact:
Of the Westlake faculty names I have seen, most were unfamiliar to me, but I can note that Russ Garcia, Howard Roberts, Dick Grove, and Bob Graettinger (private lessons) all taught there at one time or other. Students included Bill Holman, Gary Peacock, Bob Gordon, Charlie Haden, Bob Cooper, and Bob Graettinger. Reading a web site quote by Bill Holman that "we were all going to Westlake College of Music at the time," this implies that there were many students and a great deal of activity at the school, though there seems to be little surviving history. This would be another wonderful project for a dissertation. In fact, it seems to me a comparative study of Berklee and Westlake would be fascinating. Why has one so gloriously succeeded, while the other disappeared, pretty much without a trace? I am sure the reasons are a combination of artistic and business matters, but, again, it would be very interesting if someone would flesh out the details.
Speaking of business, apparently Westlake struggled from a business standpoint from day one. A former student there told me that the school had eight different locations during its existence, most of them in Hollywood, including one period when it was in the abandoned Screen Cartoonists office building. It moved from Hollywood to Laguna Beach in the summer of 1960, continuing to operate for about one more year, but drastically reduced in size and scope. There apparently was no fanfare when it ceased to be, probably around the summer of 1961. This same person related that the last he knew of Alvin Learned years ago, he was running a piano studio somewhere up the Pacific Coast Highway called "Al Learned Piano by Ear," a rather sad fate for this man who was reportedly much admired for his valiant efforts at Westlake.
Incidentally, readers may be familiar with a book entitled "West Coast Jazz" by Ted Gioia, published in 1992. Upon reading this book, I eagerly hoped for it to fill in some gaps about Westlake, but it does not do so. It does mention the school, but only from the standpoint of "Bill Holman attended Westlake," "Bob Graettinger attended Westlake," etc. Mildly critical, in one place it states that Westlake did little more than "churn out studio musicians."
Despite Westlake's ignoble lifeline, from all indications, it did play a vital role in the jazz education world of southern California for over fifteen years, and I certainly think it should be remembered and credited for whatever was accomplished.

Books

The Howard Roberts Guitar Book, by Howard Roberts and James Stewart, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1971.
Howard Roberts Guitar Manual - Sight Reading, by Howard Roberts in collaboration with Bob Grebb, Playback Music Publishing Co., 1972.
Howard Roberts Guitar Manual - Chord Melody, by Howard Roberts, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1972.
The Electric Bach - by John S. Bach, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1973
Six violin pieces by Bach arranged for plectrum guitar by Howard Roberts. Thanks to Lewis Mock for this.
Super Solos, by Howard Roberts and Ron Eschete, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1977.
Contains solos to One Note Samba, Bluesette, Soft Winds, All The Things You Are, Hoe Down, Relaxin' At Camarillo, When Lights Are Low, Gone With The Wind.
Super Chops - Jazz Guitar Technique in 20 Weeks, by Howard Roberts, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1978 .
There is also a set of accompanying tapes.
The Accelerator: The Theory-Fingerboard Connection by Howard Roberts, Charles Fechter, and Keith Wyatt, 208 pages, PlaybackMusic Publishing Company, 1980.
A substantial textbook of materials designed as a "preparatory music guide for the incoming students of G.I.T." Many thanks to Lewis Mock of Colorado Springs for securing me a copy.
Style and Craft, The Alchemy of Unique Style, by Howard Roberts and Garry Hagberg, Playback Music Publishing Inc., 1982.
A discussion of the basic moves found in guitar playing. Many thanks to Lewis Mock of Colorado Springs for securing me a copy.
The Praxis System - Guitar Compendium Volumes 1, 2 and 3, by H. Roberts and G. Hagberg, Advance Music, 1989.
These books comprise a very thorough treatment of all aspects of jazz guitar playing and are highly recommended. They are the result of a life's work playing, performing and teaching. The set is also available through the following distributors:

Sher Music Co., P.O. Box 445, Petaluma, CA 94953
1 (800) 444-7437; Fax (707) 763-2038
Email: shermuse@sonic.net

Jamey Aebersold Jazz, Inc., P.O. Box 1244, New Albany, IN 47150
1 (800) 456-1388; Fax 1 (812) 949-2006
Email: jajazz@thepoint.net

Caris Music Services, 2206 Brislin Road, Stroudsburg, PA 18360
(570) 476-6345; Fax (570) 476-5368
Email: caris@ptd.net

Jamax Music, Inc., 2124 N.E. 123rd Street, Suite 213A, North Miami, FL 33181
1 (800) 320-8038; Fax (305) 893-1515
Guitar Plectrum Picking - Maximum Flatpicking Chops, by Howard Roberts, Playback Press, 1992.

There is some additional published material that I do not have. If you know of other works by him please let me know.

The Jazz Improviser: Technique, Musicianship, Theory, Performance, By Howard Roberts, edited by Evie Palmer
Guitar Chord Directory: complete user program, by Howard Roberts, Playback Press, 1992.
Chroma, by Howard Roberts, Madelyn Roberts and Jay Roberts, Playback Press.

Articles

Howard Roberts - Jazz Improvisation, Guitar Player, January, 1974 - May, 1989.
This was a monthly column that appeared in Guitar Player magazine from January, 1974 to May, 1989. I have all of these columns (thanks to Dave Gould, Barry Worrel and others). Much of the material is covered in his 3 volume work The Guitar Compendium with Gary Hagberg but not all. Also there are a number of interesting comments made. On reading these articles one after another it is clear that he put a lot of thought into making them clear and concise.
On Learning Music, by Howard Roberts, an article in the book Ten, edited by Don Mock, Musicians Institute, 1982.
This article was reprinted in The Teaching of Jazz by Jerry Coker, Advance Music, 1989.
Four articles in How To Play Guitar, Miller Freeman Publishing, 1995. I believe that these are reprints of his Guitar Player columns.
- Making Scales Musical- A Guide to Where and When
- Learning to Economize - Cut the Fat from Your Concepts
- Scale Skills - Diminished Capacity
- Beyond the Triad - 7th Chord Arpeggios

Quote

Mitch Holder, who studied with Howard Roberts, supplied the following quote from H.R. which he recorded during his last lesson with him 11/12/70.

Through thematic development, anything will work over anything. Through voice leading, any chord will go to any chord.

To quote Mitch "That about sums up his whole basis for his playing, thematic development was first and foremost and you can hear that principle on anything he ever recorded. I've got it framed in my home studio as a reminder when I get out of line. H.R. is watching (and listening)!!"

Seminars

Prior to the founding of G.I.T. Howard Roberts was involved in conducting seminars in many cities across North America. Many guitar players came into contact with H.R. through these. For example, here is an account and some photos from a 1972 seminar he conducted at Lenny's on the Turnpike in Peabody (Boston), MA. The following pictures show Howard Roberts in action at one of his seminars: montage 1, montage 2.

Here is an excerpt (in Real Audio format) of a seminar held in London in 1985. H.R. discusses Sonic Shapes and the importance of singing what you play. Bill Williams of Portugal supplied several hours of recording from this seminar.

Jason Torres kindly supplied the following letter (pdf file) written by H.R. to Jason's father Henry Torres, a guitarist in Southern California, after he had attended one of the seminars held at the Knickerbocker Hotel in 1971.

Seminar Materials

Musicians Survival Guide, audio tapes of seminars given by Howard Roberts.
Seminar materials from a seminar in Dallas, Texas in 1976. Thanks to Fernando Bazan of New Braunfels, Texas for this. The material includes the following booklets:
- Applied Harmony and Theory
- Chord Symbols and Chord Construction
- Reharmonization and Making Your Own Progressions
- Sonic Shape Combinations
- The Guitar Fingerboard, A Complete Study of Scales, Arpeggios, Intervals, Position Playing and Linear Playing
- Ear training, Sight Reading, Chord Progressions
- Guitar Playing Is ...
Seminar materials from a seminar in Montreal in 1973. Thanks to jazz guitarist Greg Clayton of Montreal for this. The material includes the following booklets:
- Basic Harmony and Theory
- Chord Construction and Chord Symbols
- Fingerboard Harmony
- Chord Substitutions
- Improvising with the Diatonic Scale
- Improvising with Arpeggios
- Improvising with Intervals
- Chord Progressions Standard & Unusual, Finding the Key Cneters
- Reharmonization & Making Your Own Progressions
- The Guitar Fingerboard, A Complete Study of Scales, Arpeggios, Intervals, Position Playing and Linear Playing
Seminar materials for a seminar at the Holiday Inn in Austin, Texas in 1975. Thanks to guitarist Woody Key for this. Some interesting additions when compared to the 1973 material.

G.I.T. Materials

A tape of H.R. administering an oral exam for potential entrants to G.I.T. It consists of H.R. asking a number of questions concerning music theory and asking the candidate to play certain things. The candidate records their responses and sends the tape to G.I.T.

Lectures

Howard Roberts was well-known for his seminars. Here is an example of a lecture he gave at GIT in 1984 and recorded by Timothy Dalton of Redondo Beach, California who was a student there at that time. Tim has kindly made this material available. Although the sound quality is not great the lecture is quite interesting both with respect to its content and for the insights it provides into H.R. himself. The lecture is clearly "improvised" and proceeds more like an informal discussion. Still the overall effect is quite impressive and repeated listenings bear fruit. I learned some things! I've tried to summarize some key points below but probably have to think some more about this; let me know if you disagree with what I say. In particular I found the ideas of "melodic force" and "any chord leads to any chord" quite enlightening and helpful.

The broad theme of the lecture is harmony and in particular bitonal and atonal harmony. But there is much more in the lecture. I've broken it up into parts of more or less coherent pieces. Thanks again Tim!

First Part
H.R. mentions two useful books, "The Professional Composer and Arranger" by Russ Garcia and "The Shaping Forces of Music" by Ernst Toch. He defines bitonal and atonal music and makes some interesting comments about popular music and fads.
Second Part
He discusses how you construct scales to play over chords. To illustrate he writes down the ascending cluster (F#,G,B,C) and indicates how you would go about constructing an appropriate scale. He notes that in many cases such a scale will correspond with one of the common scales but not always. He then asks how you would name this chord and this leads to an interesting discussion of the origins and development of chord symbols.
Third Part
He continues the discussion of how you go about naming the above chord and this leads to a discussion of the overtone series.
Fourth Part
Continuing on from the Third Part, H.R. indicates how the overtone series can be used to name the chord and more generally the relationship of the overtone series to the notion of tonality; e.g. why the root and fifth establish tonality. To break tonality you have to break the root and fifth and he proceeds to indicate how you do this by moving away from a key center in fifths. For example, C major to G major does not break the tonality of C, as the fifth is not broken, but the next step to D major does as the fifth is broken, moving to A completely breaks the tonality of C. He makes the point that proceeding by fifths; i.e. adding sharps, is not arbitrary as adding flats doesn't lead to a gradual movement out of the key as it it takes 5 flats to break the fifth. He mentions the book "Voicing By The Overtone Series" by Paul Hindemith.
Fifth Part
In the actual lecture he illustrates how you can achieve bitonal harmony by having one player comp on Cmaj7 while he proceeds to leave the key of C major by fifths; i.e. playing in C major then G major then D major .... returning to C in the opposite direction. Here are two mp3 files containing the music (thanks to Mike Delaney for cleaning these up and making them available): file1.mp3, file2.mp3 and has kindly transcribed what HR played (transcriptions a Word document). He makes some interesting comments in this part including "any chord goes to any chord", "the spinal column of the whole subject is melody" and introduces the idea of "melodic force" and its relationship to harmony. Quite interesting.

I also have a recording of an orientation lecture H.R. gave to G.I.T. students in 1989.

Videos

I have one video of a lecture Howard Roberts gave at G.I.T. to the incoming class sometime in the late 70's. The talk is basically called "The Theory of Learning" but he ranges far and wide about music and guitar playing generally. Most of the time he is responding to questions from the audience. These videos are now up on Youtube (lecture 1, lecture 2).

Playback Press

Playback Press is now run by Patty Roberts and she can be reached at playbackmusicpubco@comcast.net.

Playback was a publishing company started by Howard Roberts to publish books on guitar instruction. While primarily publishing his books (see above), I have encountered interesting books by other authors published by Playback.

I recently found a catalogue from Playback that I received from H.R. sometime in the 70's. It has an accompanying letter from him, addressed to "Guitar Player and Musically Driven Friend", that contains the following interesting quote. It indicates what his ambitions were for Playback.

I've always had a fantasy of a huge place, maybe like an old Victorian house with 30 or 40 rooms in it, where each room would contain any subject area that one would ever want to explore about guitar playing or relevant music, where you can wander from room to room at will, exploring any and all aspects of your interests, and moving on to any other room at any time. Since we don't have a big place like a house to roam around in, this catalog could form the basis of perhaps a more mobile and easily accessible substitute. Perhaps a School of Thought will work for us right now as a starter! Let me know what you think!

Here are some of the other books published by Playback.

Isometrics For Guitarists by Milton Raskin, Playback Music PublishingCompany, 1971.
Exercises for increasing the strength and flexibility of the hands.
Jimmy Wyble's Classical/Country by Jimmy Wyble in collaboration with Bob Grebb, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1973.
A somewhat unique approach characterized by the following description: (1) Start with two notes of any interval. (2) After they have been played and a certain sound has been established, add one or two notes on a later beat which either make the original sound definite and expected or which make it unusual and surprising.
Instant Blues, Funky Style by Harley James, edited by Howard Roberts and Jack Marshall, Playback Publishing Co., 1973.
A book about the basics of playing the blues. It looks like the original manuscript was read by H.R. and Jack Marshall and they both made comments on it. The printed version of the book contains notes in their handwriting. The foreward is by H.R. and Jack Marshall and they describe encountering Harley while he was driving around in a well-equipped van. They were so impressed with his playing that they asked him to write down some of his ideas about guitar playing. Many thanks to Larry Bellinger for this.
Creative Scale Dimensions by Tim May, Playback Music Publishing Company, 1973.
This book discusses ways to use different; i.e. not the standard choices, scales to play over chords.
Quadraphonic Fingering by Mitch Holder, Playback Publishing Company, 1973.
This is a set of exercises designed for the acquistion of fingerboard dexterity and for the acquisition of some new sounds as you get involved in playing some unusual sequences of notes. I find some of these quite challenging. Here is a quote from the author about this book. "explorations of the fingerboard using the 24 possible left hand fingering combinations (1x2x3x4=24) ... it's basically all those 24 possible fingerings one finger per fret and all the other possibilities plus on adjacent strings, skipping strings and stretching the first or fourth finger an extra fret, etc." Many thanks to Larry Bellinger for the copy.