Courtesy of Lee Berk

Courtesy of Schillinger Society

Courtesy of Berklee College of Music Archives

Courtesy of Berklee College of Music Archives

In 1945 Lawrence Berk founded Schillinger House and committed to pursuing music again. Schillinger House was located at 284 Newbury Street in Boston’s Back Bay. The school specialized in teaching the Schillinger System of musical composition developed by Joseph Schillinger. Instrumental lessons and a few classes in traditional theory, harmony, and arranging were also offered.

At the time of its founding, almost all music schools focused primarily on European classical tradition. A practical and applicable curriculum, Schillinger House offered training in jazz and commercial music for radio, theater, television, and dancing. As such, most students were working professional musicians.

“In the old days, it took a classical composer a year or more to complete a symphony. With this system, that time could be cut down to a week.” – Lawrence Berk

The Schillinger System can best be described as ‘music by mathematics’; a system of composition with rhythm as its foundation, that employs mathematical techniques of classification, analysis, and synthesis. Years before, Joseph Schillinger had introduced the idea of a graphic representation of music on a sim-ple algebraic principle and developed it to achieve synchronization of three or more rhythmic patterns. Students were required to have some music background, and were often instrumentalists, composers, arrangers, etc. The system used graphs for notation of rhythmic and melodic schemes, copied onto five line four space music sheets and required little scientific or mathematical background.

At the time, there were many private teachers and studios that focused on jazz-related studies and many were even authorized ‘Regional Representatives of the Schillinger System’. In the 1940’s, ten colleges offered jazz courses on a non-credit basis and five colleges offered jazz for credit. Schillinger House also offered a 2-year professional diploma in 1945.

Berk found an unmet need with his new music school and the growth was stunning. The school had 50 students in 1946 and by 1949 there were more than 500. Many of the students were former World War II service members. Boston’s Lawrence Berk was quickly becoming the most successful Schillinger alumnus by integrating a complete jazz program within a total music curriculum.

Robert Share started studying music with Lawrence Berk when he was 17 years old. He was one the three students Berk taught on Saturday afternoons while he was still working at Raytheon. He would later hire Share as a teacher at Schillinger House where he became a gifted teacher of the Schillinger System as well as music theory, harmony, and scoring. Among Share’s students was Gary Burton, who said of Share, “Bob Share’s class organized harmony for me. And I wasn’t alone. The people who went on to create [Berklee’s] harmony department all learned their harmony from Bob.”Share went on to become an administrator at the college and helped Berk realize his vision for the school. In 1979 he was named Berklee’s provost and helped secure the foundation upon which Berklee was built.

Schillinger House

Robert Share