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Artical in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

Schools teach kids music the hard way
Heavy-metal approach appeals to 'Guitar Hero' generation, owners say

By MARK AGEE Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Behind a mix of headbanging and hair-twirling at the Creative Soul music school in Watauga last week was a sound a lot bigger than the kids making it.

Six 11-year-olds, some of whom had never picked up a musical instrument before this year, were wailing Metallica's Enter Sandman, a heavy-metal song that was released about six years before they were born. The band's name is Tin -- a play on the word ten, because that's how old the first members were when they got together.

"I like the classic stuff," said Payne Morgan, a guitarist and one of the group's singers. "I've always liked rocking out to it."

Creative Soul is one of a few music schools in the area using an approach that might seem revolutionary to those who remember pecking away at scales for hours during piano lessons.

"We ask what songs they want to learn and teach them that," said Casey Thomas, who opened Creative Soul in January 2007. "They are so much more enthusiastic that way. Reading music and learning theory and all that stuff can come later, after they've fallen in love with it."

Different approach Mike Mroz opened his For Those About to Rock School in Southlake in 2004, after his home lessons were drawing 50 students a week.

"I'd just teach them AC/DC songs, and they loved it," Mroz said. He's the guitarist for Back in Black, a Dallas-based AC/DC cover band that has developed a following. "If they like it, they're practicing more and they can't help but get good. It's a lot different from how I learned. You know, 'Here's your C chord. Come back next week, and we'll do Kumbaya and Twinkle, Twinkle.'"

Several schools in Dallas are similar, and Keller School of Music offers a garage-band class.

Both Creative Soul and For Those About to Rock focus on getting students into bands so they can play together. They each claim more than 200 students, and Mroz opened a second location in Plano. Lessons at For Those About to Rock cost $159 a month. Creative Soul charges $99 a month for private lessons and $125 for band development.

Thomas and Mroz both said the students' music choices have been a big surprise. "I thought I'd have to learn every new song that came out so I could teach them, but they're coming in asking to learn Iron Man and Sweet Home Alabama," Mroz said. "I had three kids in a week wanting to learn Surrender by Cheap Trick.

"It's what their parents listen to, and it's [the video game] Guitar Hero. Classic rock will never die."

Concerts, too
Both schools also focus on putting together shows for their students. Mroz's students played at Main Street Days in Grapevine this month. Creative Soul has a 16-band show lined up Sunday at 8.0 Restaurant and Bar in Sundance Square in Fort Worth, including adult beginners and an all-girl band. The youngest group is made up of 8-year-olds who call themselves Soldiers of Rock.

"It helps people's confidence when they play out at real venues," Thomas said. "They can feel the energy of the crowd and the music, and it motivates them to practice harder so they can do it again."

Tin will be there. It will be the band's second gig. Its first was last year at a pizza place that later closed. "That's purely coincidental," joked Drew Duffy, the group's bassist and sometimes-singer.

He swore that his throat didn't hurt from screeching out Enter Sandman half an octave lower than he usually talks. "That's how you gotta sing it -- so it rocks," he said.

Star-Telegram.com
Posted on Wed, May. 28, 2008

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Creative Soul Sponsors Kellerfest Battle of the Bands 2009

2009 Battle of the Bands Participants

Adult Bands
To No End (Creative Soul Band)
The Road After (Creative Soul Band)
Saginaw Flatts(Creative Soul Band)
Adult Worship Band(Creative Soul Band)

Youth Bands
Kick Your Donkey
Minor Damage
Simone Nicole
Key
4:12(Creative Soul Band)
Guilt by Association(Creative Soul Band)
Exit(Creative Soul Band)
Tin(Creative Soul Band)
Fretless(Creative Soul Band)
Bootleg Radio(Creative Soul Band)
White Lightning(Creative Soul Band)
Flipside(Creative Soul Band)

http://kellerfest.com/bands2.aspx

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