Jim's Bio

Being born in Chicago, at age eight Jim was able to attain violin lessons with the most prestigious instructors. After being assessed as a child prodigy, he began taking lessons at the Chicago Musical College and the American Conservatory of Music. As a teenager he took two (one hour) lessons per week and practiced 4-8 hours per day while maintaining an “A” average in his schoolwork. During this time he was also Assistant Concertmaster of the Collegium Musicum at the University of Chicago and studied with the concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

After graduating from high school at the age of seventeen, he received a scholarship to study violin and orchestral music at Julliard School of Music. While there he performed with the New York Philharmonic and studied with Conductor, Fritz Reiner.

Leaving New York, he performed with the Columbus Philharmonic in Columbus, Ohio as Assistant Concertmaster for two years.

Feeling the impending doom of the draft, he sought and received an appointment to the United States Navy Admiral’s Band and Orchestra at Annapolis, Maryland. There he completed studies at the Naval School of Music in Washington D. C. While there he learned to play the clarinet for the marching band. He marched in two Inaugurations and played at many State Affairs and sports events. In the orchestra he played for State Dinners and dances for visiting dignitaries from all over the world. Although he was officially in the band he still had sea duty. He attended night school at Johns Hopkins University completing all of the liberal arts courses.

After six years, he was given an honorable discharge. He was encouraged to take extensive aptitude tests at the University of Chicago. They recommended that he change to a career in acoustical engineering. Obtaining his degree in three years he then formed his own company, Civil, Acoustical and Mechanical Consulting Engineers. He traveled the U. S, Canada and Mexico extensively. He went to work for Hammond Organ Company as an acoustical engineer. The opportunity to own 3 music stores arose and he gladly acquiesced so that he would be close to home with his wife and young son. However that was short lived. Sadly, circumstances and fate intervened and the stores had to be liquidated due to his divorce.

Managing retail music stores in Arizona followed. Jim was extremely successful in the sales of pianos and organs and was honored with the “President’s Club Award” numerous times. As a reward Jim was treated to many trips around the world where the group stayed in five star hotels and went on elaborate tours. One of the most memorable was a boat trip down the Rhine River from Switzerland to Denmark. Taking his mother with him they also enjoyed a tour of Paris.

One day Joyce went in to Jim's store to buy a piano. She must have made an impression on him because he later hired her to supervise the piano and organ program for three stores. Working together Jim and Joyce found that they had numerous common interests. A deeper relationship evolved into courtship and then marriage.

In Arizona Jim also took up long distance running and bicycling. He participated in seven marathons and many shorter distance runs. It was on a cycling excursion with a friend when their handlebars tangled and both suffered knee and hand injuries. Jim’s running days were lessened, but not finished. “Running and playing instruments both have similar disciplines; patience, consistent and regular practice, dedication, concentration, endurance and the need for self-improvement and many more attributes as listed on the back of our business card” Jim said.

Jim retired from the music store in 1999 and began helping Joyce teach piano in their home. Joyce also encouraged him to start playing the violin after many years of other music related activities. When he felt comfortable with the violin, after many months of practicing, he began teaching. Together they formed JoySounds Music School.

In 2005 they decided to retire and move to New Braunfels to be closer to Joyce’s family. The retirement was short lived as many people whom they met asked them to open a music school. The music school has been very successful and the Roberts do not plan to ever fully retire!

Joyce's Bio

The music that Joyce heard in her girlhood home helped her to become an accomplished musician.

“When I was around 3, I would sneak over to the neighbor’s farm. On that farm, they had everything that MacDonald’s farm had … chickens, pigs and cows. “I would go over when the farmer was doing his chores, and I would start talking and singing to him. One day he got a milk crate and turned it upside down. He lifted me up, put me on it, and said, ‘OK, now you’ve got a stage, just sing your little heart out.’ When he was old and very ill, he said, “You know, I loved that you came over and sang to me when you were little. You brightened my day and the cows gave more milk!” So that started my music career … my milk crate stage,” she says with a laugh.

She sang her first solo in church when she was only eight; then she went on to be organist and children’s choir director before she was sixteen. She sang in talent shows, for banquets, weddings and funerals in junior high and high school. In college she was paid to sing solos in churches around Dallas and Fort Worth.

Joyce’s grandmother was enamored of her natural talent and noticed her penchant for playing the piano. At age 6 Joyce inherited the piano from her grandmother after she passed away. Joyce recalls first learning how to play by ear because teachers wouldn’t give her formal training until she was eight. Her piano training led to her being very active in music groups at church and school such as marching band, concert and symphonic bands. She sang in the jazz band and was in the high school choir.

As she grew in to a teenager, Joyce was invited to sing at various functions. She said that many times there was no piano and she had to sing “acappella”. She longed for a guitar, but knew that it was not in the family budget. One day she found an old, beat-up guitar with only three strings on her neighbor’s trashcan, so her dream of owning a guitar materialized. She picked up chords and strums here and there, and in high school she continued giving musical performances with her guitar.She also gave fellow students guitar lessons. At TCU she studied classical organ and voice with Katherine Dacus and piano with Madame Lilly Krause. She continued her solo performances while she worked toward her K-12 music education certificate. Later she studied classical guitar (with a new guitar) at Southwestern University. While teaching in Austin she was asked by Dr. Richard Sutch, Superintendent of Music, to write a guitar curriculum for the Austin Independent School District. Then to her surprise she was asked to teach the general music teachers how to teach guitar using her curriculum. One of her students was a former choir director where she went to high school! All of this was done when she was pregnant with her second child. “The classes were very entertaining as my guitar kept slipping off of my lap when the baby kicked,” she said laughingly.

With her new family, she moved from Austin to Georgetown and continued teaching. It was through Southwestern University in Georgetown that she was able to continue her supplemental studies in music, theater and voice at Goldsmith’s College, a branch of the University of London in England. The participants were treated to wonderful plays and concerts all over Great Britain (“with a written test the next day of course” she exclaimed).

She was given the opportunity to go to Arizona to start a music program for young children. And for a long time she had wanted to sing with the International Champion Scottsdale Sweet Adelines. After traveling back and forth from Georgetown and Phoenix for several months she decided to move to Arizona. Joyce took Music for Young Children courses to be prepared to teach children as young as eighteen months. She now says that this is her favorite age to teach. She also decided to pursue a degree in business management from the University of Phoenix to accomplish her goal of owning and managing a large music school.

One day she went in to a Mesa, Arizona music store to buy a piano and was later hired as coordinator and teacher for the music program for several stores. There she met her future husband, Jim.

Having been involved in musical theater for many years, Joyce shares that knowledge by teaching Broadway music, stage presence, choreography, how to get past stage fright, pageant competition, singing solos, singing in bands, and opera. One of her favorite roles was Lizl in the Houston Music Theater’s production of “The Sound of Music”. She also sang with the Austin Choral Union, The Georgetown Sweet Adelines, The Scottsdale Sweet Adelines and in a Sweet Adeline quartet. She was also one of hundreds of people chosen by Michael Jackson’s choreographer to sing and dance with Diana Ross in Super Bowl XXX in Tempe, Arizona. What an honor!

Joyce has been a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Music Teachers National Association, the Texas Music Teachers Association and the Organization of Teachers of Opera.

While she lived in Arizona, she and Jim were extremely active in the Desert Valley Music Teachers Association. Their students were entered in 6 events each year and were awarded trophies, cash and scholarships. The couple said, “the demands on us were exhaustive, but the rewards were immense”.

Joyce is intensely proud of her students and she is appreciative that parents take an active interest in what their children are learning at the music school. Parents are welcome to sit in on the lessons, or they can sit in one of the comfortable waiting rooms.

Whether you are a gifted prodigy at age three or four or playing the piano for your first time at age 80, Joyce emphasizes that music soothes the soul, keeps the mind fertile and gives you a great sense of achievement.

About the Owners

Through the establishment of their JoySounds Music School many years ago, longtime music educators Joyce Roberts, and her husband, Jim, strike an emotional chord in the hearts and minds of the people who live in this area.

Having moved here in 2005 to retire, they wholeheartedly have heeded the calling for a music school in New Braunfels. They are steadfastly passionate about their livelihoods as music teachers, and by popular demand they have ditched any semblance of plans for retirement. “We absolutely love what we do, and I don’t think we could ever fully retire”, Joyce says emphatically.

Working together in harmony, the couple has converted their former spacious, two-story home into a veritable music studio and concert hall. Budding musicians master their crafts as the Roberts nurture their confidence in their abilities. The self-assured students showcase what they’ve learned during recitals, which are held twice yearly.

The music school is well equipped with high-tech musical equipment, computers with interactive software programs, literature, songbooks and pianos all geared to pique people’s interest in learning about music. The couple equips their school with innovative teaching tools from stuffed animals (some named for great composers like “Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse) to professional state-of-the-art equipment. Students are encouraged to use this equipment for their self-improvement and enjoyment.

The walls of the music studio are covered with photos of former music students celebrating achievements in their lives.

Heavy traffic flows through the music school as children as well as adults from New Braunfels as well as surrounding counties cultivate their talents and love of music. Joyce and Jim are both fastidious and scholarly and professional in their educational efforts.

Joyce says, “My husband and I attend schools and seminars often, to keep up with all of the latest innovations, and the newest techniques in teaching. This is our full time occupation. We offer more skill at dealing with a great variety of students, and have the most extensive programs in New Braunfels."