Although there was much music around the Howard home, young George Sallade Howard, the only child, didn’t want to be a musician. His mother was a professional pianist and Grandfather Sallade who lived with them was a former bandleader and clarinetist. But George would have no lessons from either of them.
But no one needed to tell Grandfather Sallade that George would some day be a great clarinet player, because he knew it. He knew it by the way George listened to music and by the questions he asked about the clarinet. However no one urged the boy to study music until he was ready.
That time came when at the age of fifteen he entered high school and heard the school band. Rushing home the first day, he announced, “I’m going to be in the band, and I want to play the clarinet. Will you teach me, Grandfather?”
His music-loving family knew that home instruction was not always satisfactory, so they sent him to study under a local teacher. He had more questions than ever to ask his grandfather, but it was many years later when George realized how much help and encouragement he had received from him during his school band days.
From high school George went to Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, having won a three-year music scholarship there. Although his parents were well able to meet his college expenses, George earned all his spending money by playing in the Ithaca Theater Orchestra.
After receiving his degree from Ithaca, George started collecting more sheepskins. He studied at Ohio Wesleyan until he received his A.B. degree, then went on to Chicago Conservatory for his degree of Master of Music. His ambition still unsatisfied, he secured his Master’s degree at New York University and returned to Chicago Conservatory for his doctorate of music.
With all this extensive preparation and an armful of degrees, George Howard at the age of nineteen, began his career in Patrick Conway’s famous band. Five years later he was the clarinet soloist, a chair he held for two years.
Then he left the concert field to become an educator in the music field. He was asked to return to his first college, Ithaca, this time to teach clarinet and saxophone. From Ithaca he went to the second college he had attended, Ohio Wesleyan University, as instructor of wind pedagogy.
As George Howard’s reputation as a leader and teacher spread, he was in great demand. He accepted the job of Director of Music at the widely-known national home for young people maintained by the Moose Lodge in Mooseheart, Illinois. Here the Mooseheart Band under his direction won the Illinois state championship for four consecutive years.
From 1936 to 1942 Howard was Director of Music at Pennsylvania State Teachers College where they proudly tell about his achievements in their music department during that time. Reluctantly they released him “on leave” to the army.