Rock And Roll High Summer Camp Returns

Electric guitars, the beating of drums and powerful lyrics might not be the sounds normally heard at a summer camp, but then again Rock And Roll High is far from typical.

“We’re teaching creativity and we’re not teaching them just to play the songs that their parents love,” said Rock And Roll High founder, Aaron Burch.

Since 2005, the popular rock infused summer camp held at the has been connecting elementary and middle school students to their inner rock stars with an all-encompassing rock experience that goes far beyond basic chords. With a ratio of three or four instructors per 15 students, the camps are personalized and incorporate fun games meant to promote creativity, he said.

Aside from learning cover songs and writing their own material, students have a chance to form a their own band, make music videos and songs, participate in photo shoots, make a demo CD and play actual rock shows.

In the tradition of rock and roll benefit albums, students also have the option of releasing songs on iTunes, with proceeds going to a social cause. 

“It’s a great way to learn music because you are learning in a social context with other kids and you’re expressing yourself from day one, as opposed to learning how to do that side of it 10 years later,” Burch said.

Burch has even devised his own creative method to teach children how to play guitar quickly, which is also the subject of a new book he wrote entitled Rock And Roll High, due out in April and possibly as an eBook later this year (click here for a free online lesson). 

By telling children to clamp the strings like “Henry the Hungry Alligator” on frets marked by certain colored stars, even young children can learn to play the refrain of a song like Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash in about 10 minutes, he says. After learning covers, children are encouraged to draft their own original songs. 

“The method really works because … the normal way of learning guitar is so challenging physically right away that you give up,” he said. “It’s an enormous dexterity issue right off the bat when you try to make a chord.  ...This allows the kid to just experience the fun part and not have to worry about the dexterity. We’ll cover that later once they already love it.”

A camp for ages 3 to 5 is also being added this year and will focus on dance, movement and rhythmic instruments, and will include a photo shoot of the tots “looking like rock stars,” he said. 

The middle school camps are the most popular and many students attending those started at a young age, such as Gavin Gottlich, an eighth-grader at

“Aaron’s the best,” Gottlich said. “I started Rock And Roll High in the middle of third grade. I was just starting to play my instrument and I formed my first band, Streak of Lightning. … Now I’m the singer for my new band, Downpull.”

While Gottlich has struck out on his own, Burch has formed a band out of a core group of students who started playing together in 2007, known as The Hooligans. With the oldest member being only 10 years old, The Hooligans have already played such notable venues as The Roxy in Hollywood, albeit with what Burch describes as a “ridiculous” amount of supervision.

“To just give them the tools and see where they go with it is really cool,” Burch said. “They don’t all turn out to be musicians; they also turn out to be photographers and filmmakers.” 

Burch believes that Rock And Roll High is good for kids for another reason.    
“A lot of these kids … aren’t doing so well in the social areas of life, and this gives them a chance to show other kids what they’re good at,” he said. “A lot of parents tell me that their kid came out of their shell.”

The social aspect is the most important part of the summer camps for Burch. Though he learned to play piano at the age of 5 and drums at 10, Burch said he didn’t love playing music till he was 18 and joined a band. 

“All of the sudden my life changed. I already had a skill but then I found a way to make it social,” he said. “The point of Rock And Roll High is to have other kids skip those years and experience the fun part of music right away.”

Classes begin on June 29 and last about six hours a lesson. To learn more about summer camps and pricing, click here.

To read about other summer camps at the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center,