Howard Roberts Super Chops – The highlight of the winter months!

**GordonM** · 03-17-2024, 08:04 AM

Howard Roberts Super Chops – The highlight of the winter months!

Noodling and playing through your well-tried repertoire is fun but means progress to becoming a better guitarist is slow.
If you don’t have a guitar teacher, if you don’t have better musician friends to play with, if you don’t follow a subscribed online course then at the very least you need to devise a defined plan to follow if you want to improve.
HR is the most recorded guitarist ever and likely to remain so. He had great skills and technique and his recordings are well worth listening to (“The real Howard Roberts” album is a favourite of mine)
A respected educator – books, seminars, and founder of G.I.T. So bearing all of this in mind, a course written by him must have some merit so I looked at HRSC (Howard Roberts Super Chops) to be part of my plan.

Failed..
The first time I tried HRSC a year ago I gave up after the first week…
- He says to take 10 mins to record the chord charges – well the very first project in the course has some pretty advanced chords which took me a couple of hours to master well enough to record.
- He says take 2 mins to “get it off paper and into your head” – more like at least a couple of days before I could do this.
So a lot more than an hour a day needed for me so it was just too much time & effort required.

But..
I was interested in whether anyone else had tried HRSC so I did a bit of googling. Threads on this forum popped up along with some Youtube videos but it seems a lot of other people have not been successful or not taken it seriously.
HR emphasises several times in the book that it is a regimented course and NOT to deviate from the schedule..
- One youtuber plays swing notes instead of straight eights – FAIL!
- Another throws in triplets, hammer-ons and bent notes – very nice but FAIL!
- Most are not playing the project for a full 10 minutes – Huge FAIL!
- Another says to not follow the HR chord changes but to improvise over a jazz standard – complete FAIL! Go and find a ‘Standards’ course if that’s what you want.
So judging by these efforts and my attempt, it’s not the easiest of programmes to do.

However, I had another go a few months later for these reasons…
- This time I had Band-In-A-Box which made it straightforward to record the changes and to change the tempo as required.
- I still needed some defined plan for helping with my progressing and I thought HRSC was worth giving another go.
- It was late autumn, so I’d have more time indoors over the coming winter months to commit to the guitar.
- My lovely Gibson Howard Roberts guitar which I play most days was rolling its eyes at me and telling me to stop being so lazy!

How was it for me?...
Scale patterns, Key centres, Physical rests, Mental hazards, Psychological aspects – it’s all there and needs to be read through carefully or the reasonings behind the course won’t be taken in.
I made sure not to gloss over the notes but to ready carefully everything that HR was saying. After all, this is a disciplined and regimented 20-week programme so worth spending a couple of hours taking in his notes before attempting any playing, there’s a lot of notes before the first project so I'll say it again, don’t read for just 5 minutes but take a couple of hours!
In fact I think you need to read the ‘Forward’ several times to understand HR’s reasoning behind this course.

Anyway….
Week 1 – playing straight eights was easy enough up to the suggested tempo, just needs concentration to keep the momentum going for the whole 10 mins and to not deviate into triplets or fast runs. A slow temp also means that you’re not going to simply go up and down scales – it allows you time to try a lot of ideas such as string hopping/skipping and different arpeggio shapes.
Week 5 – this showed me that I wasn’t comfortable with a continual flow of Harmonic Minor improv so a lot more work needed on learning these scales.
Week 8 – A huge, massively huge jump needed to play triplets and make the scale changes without mistakes. The week that the confidence fell to its lowest point! Unlike the previous weeks where I could comfortably play at the HR max tempos I couldn’t start at the 96bpm max so backed down to 70bpm and went up a bit each day from that. Hard to think about target notes or enclosures, more a case of playing ideas within the correct tonal centre without making mistakes.
Week 13 – HRSC project 6B - this was when I felt that I was actually getting something from this course. I could comfortably play triplets for 10 minutes at 120bpm. I had a go at the suggested max of 138bpm – this was physically tiring so although I got through it I don’t think that I was really making many great musical statement at this tempo.
Week 14 – Recap showing why project 4A was and still is a real challenge, but it seemed a bit easier this week. I’m playing much more than just one hour a day to try and conquer these projects. For me, three 10-minute play-throughs is not enough but as HR says “one hour a day is fine, but 12 hours is better” (- maybe 2-3 realistically!)
Week 16 – 6A and 6B played with straights and triplets is easy enough but the trick is to not rely on well worn blues patterns,
Week 17 – Going through 2A in triplets at 120 bpm is actually an enjoyable time, the improvements in my playing are really showing.
Week 20 – Final week, really enjoyable going through through the projects and feeling that sense of achievement,

Was it worth doing?....
Doing the course as instructed without deviation really is a case of, to quote HR “If you do it, you get it. If you don’t, you don’t”.
As instructed I made sure I performed a warm-up routine at the start - I use the routine from Michael Angelo Batio’s “Speed Kills” programme – this basically covers all notes on all frets in all positions with all the different combinations of LH fingering (i.e.1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 2-3, 2-4, 3-4) it takes a few minutes but really loosens up the LH fingers, something you certainly need to do when your hands start to get older!
Although I recorded using BIAB, I also played through the chord changes on guitar – this is essential really if you want to get the most out of the HRSC. The harmonic changes and moves can be missed if you don’t attempt the HR chords and cop out by just sticking to simple shell voicings.
I always played through the changes for a whole 10 mins as instructed – This was a great experience and it really does help to instil the changes. Playing through them once or for just a couple of minutes is NOT enough to get ideas cemented but the full 10 minutes means that some of those ‘happy accidents’ played will get recalled and added into the jazz brain bank. If I found a new phrase or missed a change, then I could try it again on the next round through. And there can be a lot of repeats – e.g. Project 6-B takes under a minute to do once but repeats itself at least 10 times giving plenty of opportunities within the 10 minutes.
My inner ear and internal singing of a line has improved greatly, I’m hearing things a lot more in advance of playing them.
My picking technique has improved tremendously and I can play a lot faster with more accuracy.

This course is somewhat unique in that the chord changes are not related to specific melodies. I know that people have said that the changes are the same as some jazz standard but this is not the point of the course. You simply cannot think of playing to a well known melody when you are playing a constant flow of triplets for 10 minutes. 120bpm is a steady 6 notes per second and trying to incorporate ‘Angel Eyes’ or whatever is a distraction from the main focus.
If you study HR’s examples that he has written to go with each project, then you can see that there really is not a specific standard coming through, but there are very useful musical ideas – For instance, If you take the example for project 3-B there are several JS Bach like passages –look at bars 5-8 and then the first 8 bars at the section labelled ‘B’ – great stuff!
Some of the projects have chromatic chord sequences, it’s interesting to see what HR does over these as the easy thing to do (and to avoid!) would be to simply slide down my pattern one fret with each chromatic chord shift.

In the notes at the beginning of the HRSC book HR outlines the scale patterns which will cover the whole neck. Worth studying this in depth and memorising if you’re not familiar - I’ve improved greatly on going from one pattern to another in roughly the same fret position. This has been perhaps the most important benefit of HRSC for me, it has VASTLY increased my fretboard knowledge in a practical sense.

To sum up…
Players without at least an hour a day, every day, for 20 weeks look elsewhere. Lazy and/or narrow-minded players look elsewhere. But commit to it and YES, it’s well worth doing HRSC and if you follow the disciplined regimen guidelines and NOT deviate or get sloppy you really can get a lot of benefit. I’ll say it again – follow the course strictly and you will get a lot from it. I certainly have!

**Jimmy blue note** · 03-17-2024, 09:13 PM

I run the superchops in completion every few years. The group dynamic is really helpful and I've made many additions and alternatives as options for people to consider. I've also suggested liberties depending on the focus, playing level and personal objectives (one of the reasons I suggest doing this ever few years at a different starting level).
I've been considering beginning another cycle. The big takeaway: If you have a well planned and well motivated regimen that takes into consideration the many levels of proficiency each level needs to move to a higher level, having a guided commitment to play each day WILL take you somewhere that people likely don't get to.

I began the first run years ago under my user name at the time TruthHertz and then last year as a post pandemic program.

I have been considering doing this with a fresh set of standards, starting slow each week and bringing the speed progressively higher. I'd also point out supplemental thoughts and tips, introduce ornaments and approach notes along the way for the more advanced or challenging players and introduce phrasing elements in the last segment.

I just remember how much work it took to run that in previous years and I need to psych myself to organize and guide a group.

Definitely worth the effort as long as one has the time, motivation and dedication. It was a game changer for me and I enjoy doing it myself every few years.

**Mick-7** · 03-17-2024, 10:45 PM

"I just remember how much work it took to run that in previous years and I need to psych myself to organize and guide a group."

No need, just revive the last thread on this topic that you started, we don't need yet another thread.

By the way, has anyone ever seen Howard as an adult not wearing sunglasses? (indoors or out). When I attended one of his workshops, he had them on all the time.

Maybe they were magic glasses, his playing would suck if he didn't wear them? - like Samson after Delilah cut his hair off.

**GordonM** · 03-18-2024, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note

I run the superchops in completion every few years. The group dynamic is really helpful and I've made many additions and alternatives as options for people to consider. I've also suggested liberties depending on the focus, playing level and personal objectives (one of the reasons I suggest doing this ever few years at a different starting level).
I've been considering beginning another cycle. The big takeaway: If you have a well planned and well motivated regimen that takes into consideration the many levels of proficiency each level needs to move to a higher level, having a guided commitment to play each day WILL take you somewhere that people likely don't get to.

I began the first run years ago under my user name at the time TruthHertz and then last year as a post pandemic program.

I have been considering doing this with a fresh set of standards, starting slow each week and bringing the speed progressively higher. I'd also point out supplemental thoughts and tips, introduce ornaments and approach notes along the way for the more advanced or challenging players and introduce phrasing elements in the last segment.

I just remember how much work it took to run that in previous years and I need to psych myself to organize and guide a group.

Definitely worth the effort as long as one has the time, motivation and dedication. It was a game changer for me and I enjoy doing it myself every few years.

Yes it is well worth the effort and is a great course for sef-improving, I can't agree that it needs any rewrite and certainly no liberties to be taken or the reasonings behind it will be lost. Maybe a follow-up course could be useful for those that have done the HRSC, but people really need to do HRSC as it stands before trying different approaches.
The pdf for HRSC is easily found via google so if anyone is interested and can commit to it, I'd say get the course, print it out and go for it.