Meet Alan Roubik | Piano Teacher | Acclaimed Pianist & Composer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alan Roubik and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alan, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
As much as I loved playing the piano and composing music, I never intended to pursue music as a career—let alone become a piano teacher. And although I was working on earning my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management at California State University, Los Angeles, I was unsure of what path I’d take upon graduating.

One year prior to graduating, my stock broker recommended investing in Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. While on a visit to see the studio, I met legendary producer and artist manager Joe Gottfried (VP of Sound City), and I mentioned that I composed my own music and that I had been playing the piano since I was 3 years old.  Joe asked me to record three of my original pieces on a cassette tape and send them to him. He called me a week later and asked me to stop by the studio. At that meeting, he said: “You need to be in the music business,” and “I want you to write music for my artists.”  I couldn’t believe it, this is the same guy that discovered, managed, and produced artists such as Toto, Fleetwood Mac, The Carpenters, and Rick Springfield!  So I redirected my path toward the music industry. Sadly, Joe unexpectedly passed away in 1992. Shortly after in that same year I launched Roubik Records.

As my career in music began to take off, my gardener, Randy, asked if I would consider teaching piano to an eleven-year-old boy in my neighborhood. The boy’s parents had struggled to find a teacher willing to work with him due to his severe dyslexia, ADHDE and physical limitations.  Initially, I declined—teaching wasn’t part of my plan. Randy persisted, urging me at least to meet the boy. And after meeting him and seeing his determination to learn to play the piano, I decided to give him a chance. It was incredibly challenging, and I had to find ways to teach him. But within a few weeks I was amazed at how much he had improved, by far surpassed my expectations. Years later, he returned to tell me that he was writing, producing, and even touring with his own music, and he had a manager!

Needless to say, that experience was a turning point in my life, and I realized that I needed to make time to teach. As it turned out, that was one of the most challenging students that I had, with exception to a severely autistic student that I’ve been working with who happens to have perfect pitch and has made immense progress, much to everyone’s surprise.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
The key to my success (pun intended) was approaching the music business as a business. I could care less about fame, unless it brought me fortune. I composed music that I wanted to hear and enjoy for myself, nobody else.  But I had to start thinking about it in terms of marketing, and knew that I needed to produce music on par with the likes of Sony Music and Warner Bros. to be taken seriously. So, I listened to top selling albums at Tower Records and to notes of the credits so that I could hire the very best studio musicians, recording engineers and rented out the best studios in LA.

My first album release was “Promises,” a contemporary jazz / pop-instrumental album, accompanied by top studio musicians such as guitarist Grant Geissman (Chuck Mangione, Ringo Starr), saxophonists Paul Russo (The Commodores, Chaka Khan), bassist Melvin Davis (George Benson, Lee Ritenour), and string orchestra arranged by Suzie Katayama (Prince, Madonna). It did well on Adult Contemporary stations across the country, but I couldn’t get past the “payola” part of the business. That’s where a station program manager says that he loves your album, but that “you need to give me a good reason to play it.”  I asked my neighbor about it, he was the road manager of the Rolling Stones.  He said that that meant offering them “cash, cocaine and hookers.”  Nope, I wasn’t going to go down that road!

I had to take it to the next level and determined that television would be the best exposure and a way to circumvent the sleazy radio program managers. With the assistance of director John Landis (Thriller, Blues Brothers) and his production team, I produced a 35mm music video of the title track, “Promises,” which was a hit on such programs as MTV and Star TV Asia.  I also made appearances on the Home Shopping Network, which was a hoot! In both instances, piano manufacturer Yamaha was happy to have me showcase their grand pianos, which meant that I didn’t have to rent and move a $100K piano.

China was my biggest market, where I remained as one of the most popular artists for several years.  I was told that they had sold 2-3 million copies of the CD Promises. That was great news! However, I never received my royalties, and there was nothing I could do about it. Sales elsewhere around the world were okay, though not to my expectations.

I needed to try a new strategy. Rather than going head-to-head with mainstream genres and distribution channels, I found a niche and focused on Healing music, promoted and distributed primarily through bookstores worldwide. That was a game-changer!

Utilizing magnetic resonance technology to study the effects of music on the brain and body, my Music for your Health Series became the most popular and successful program of its kind, demonstrating the transformative power of music in a way that was both innovative and measurable. Japanese research scientist and best-selling author, Dr. Masaru Emoto, put my music through a series of tests and determined that my music could be used to boost the immune system, lower stress, reduce pain, and more. He published his findings in many of his books, including Hidden Messages in Water.  CDs sold for $100 each in Japan, and at one point I had three CD manufacturers producing the CDs in the US and shipping them by the pallets to Tokyo. That market earned me five Gold Records!

What sets me apart is not only my career as a successful recording artist, but also my work as a piano teacher. With my unique background, I attract quite a few people in entertainment, teaching them and/or their children.  One of my favorite celebrity students was Jim Cummings, known for being the voices of Whinnie the Pooh and Tigger), he was hilarious! And of course getting to know Jamie Foxx, who accompanied his daughter for lessons, has been a pleasure.

Additionally, quite a few of my students have won local and national competitions with their school bands, had their music featured in film and television, and several have gone on to build successful careers as composers, producers, recording artists, studio musicians and music teachers. I’m sure that it helps that I’m also the only piano teacher that has been endorsed by both Yamaha and Bösendorfer piano manufacturers, the latter of which puts me in the company of such composers as Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Leonard Bernstein and Oscar Peterson.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live in Conejo Valley, which is essentially between Los Angeles and Santa Barbra. We’ve got great restaurants like Finney’s in Westlake Village for the best seared Ahi tuna sandwich or Janchi Korean BBQ in Thousand Oaks, an amazing performing arts center and the Canyon Club for entertainment, many beautiful hiking trails and horseback riding, and it’s only a 15 minutes drive to Malibu and Zuma Beach. One of my favorite weekend stops is the iconic Rock Store, a biker hangout where I often take friends in my 1968 Corvette or ride there on motorcycles.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As a child, I begged my parents for a piano. At the time, we didn’t have the space for one in our home—nor could they find a teacher willing to take on a three-year-old. My parents promised me, “We’ll buy you a piano when we move into a bigger house.” And they kept that promise. Years later, when I told my parents I wanted to pursue a career in music, they supported me wholeheartedly. I named my debut album Promises, which was in part because they had kept their promise to me.

Although my mentor, producer Joe Gottfried, taught me much about the music business, I also gained invaluable insight from Donald Passman’s book All You Need to Know About the Music Business. It’s a resource I still recommend to students interested in the business side of music. In college, I took a business law class and later learned to read and write my own agreements.  I had learned so much that I was able to help Whitney Houston understand her artist agreement and gave her valuable career advice that lead to her big hit soundtrack album, The Bodyguard.

I’m deeply grateful to a few friends of mine that had persistently asked me to play my music for them and to compose more music when I was in my teen years, inspiring me to create many of my hit songs. Additionally, both my lovely wife Naira and my talented son Ara have inspired me to know end as a composer and piano teacher.

Website: https://www.roubikrecords.com

Instagram: alanroubik

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roubik/

Twitter: @Roubik

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100025075117950

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/alan-roubik-agoura-hills-2

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RoubikRecords