We’re very proud that you voted us Best After School Activity in Paris for 2019/2020! Thank you for making Rock U. what it is!
We’re very proud that you voted us Best After School Activity in Paris for 2019/2020! Thank you for making Rock U. what it is!
Why did Beatles guitarist George Harrison always travel with two ukuleles? So he could play music with anyone he met, even if they had never played before! Ukuleles are easy to play, sound great, and are inexpensive, small, and lightweight compared to guitars.
Become part of the Rock U. ukulele nation by learning how to play some of your favourite songs on your uke, with Rock U. teacher James Dempsey! Rock U. is pleased to offer a third session of our very popular online ukulele workshop through May and June. Absolute beginners are welcome, but more advanced players will also learn a lot.
Deconfinement has finally arrived! We at Rock U. have spent several weeks planning for our eventual reopening by consulting municipal authorities, studying guidelines released by local and federal governments, and surveying colleagues, students, and advisors. What we present below represents the outcome of that process and is the most detailed plan we can offer at this stage, since new information and instructions will likely emerge over the next several weeks.
As of last Thursday, 7 May, we have directly consulted the City of Paris, the Maison des Associations (the governmental office that oversees non-profit associations), and the Ministry of the Interior about reopening Rock U. We have received their explicit assurances, in writing, that we may reopen for normal activities, subject to the physical distancing guidelines that apply to all public spaces.
We will therefore, starting at the beginning of next week, begin the process of gradually reopening the Rock U. studio for our student bands, starting with our adult bands and slowly phasing in each successive age group over the next several weeks or more. While any dates we offer now are subject to modification as developments dictate, we anticipate the following schedule for welcoming bands back to the studio:
18 May: Adult Bands
22 May: Older teen bands (Advanced Rock 2 and Varsity bands)
28 May: Younger teen bands (Advanced Rock 1 and Junior Varsity bands)
TBD: Rock 101 and Rock 202 bands
All youth bands will continue their current online learning until they are able to resume activities at the Rock U. studio. Youth bands have been operating continuously since 27 March and the Spring Session will end as scheduled on Saturday 20 June.
Adult Band Semester 2 will be extended into the summer months, with an end date to be determined.
At this point, we don’t anticipate resuming private lessons at Rock U. before Fall 2020, although we will revisit this decision as events warrant. Private lessons will continue to be held online as they have been since the end of March.
All Rock U. band sessions will be subject to the following health and safety procedures:
STUDENTS WHO CANNOT ATTEND ROCK U. IN PERSON:
We realize that some of our students are no longer in Paris, or for other reasons may not be able or willing to attend band practices at Rock U. We will address these bands and students on a case-by-case basis and make every reasonable effort to enable these students to participate in the band’s activities.
SPRING CONCERT:
Although nothing has been definitively stated yet, it seems very unlikely that we will be able to stage concerts for any of our student bands until the fall. The bands will instead perform their songs through a combination of audio and video projects and livestreams from the Rock U. studio.
SUMMER ACTIVITIES
We will make a decision about our Summer 2020 sessions at some point after 2 June. We will also be developing online offerings for the summer months.
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please send an email to matt@rock-u.fr. We’re in this together and we welcome your input and suggestions.
We started confinement almost two months ago by thanking you for your patience and understanding during these unprecedented times. Nothing has changed. We’re so grateful to you for being not just students, colleagues, and friends, but part of a community we value and cherish.
Thank you… and let’s rock!
Matt and the Rock U. Crew
The world I love
The tears I drop
To be part of
The wave, can’t stop
At Rock U., we love to make music. And after an unexpected interruption, we’re back at it again. Starting now.
Listen to Chumbawumba. They know what they’re talking about.
I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never gonna keep me down
In the immortal words of rock and roll prophet Neil Young:
Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
Once again, we miss you all! And once again we send our hopes that you and your loved ones are in good health and comfortable during this period of confinement.
Three weeks ago, I contacted you to let you know how we planned to keep the spirit of rock and roll alive for our Rock U. community. We told you that we would keep bands and lessons going online until the confinement came to an end, which we hoped would be mid-April. Then we’d hit the ground running with no time lost once that day arrived. Now, of course, we know that we will have to wait out confinement until at least mid-May, and that it seems increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able to stage any concerts for a very long time.
Don’t worry. We got this.
In the past weeks, as we’ve figured out how to keep things going online, we’ve made, learned, and discovered some amazing things together. Many of our bands are on the verge of releasing their first made-at-home music videos. Others are writing original songs. Still others are learning advanced recording and mixing techniques. Others are exploring new sounds, resources, and a deeper understanding of how music is made. And all of them have learned and progressed on both new and familiar musical and creative paths. We are committed to continuing that, and it’s only going to get easier and better every day.
So what happens next?
Kids’ and teen bands
Adult bands
Private lessons
For everyone
Payment information
As you know, we have not yet requested any payment for the Spring Session of our youth bands. All band members have been welcome to continue participating in our online sessions with no payment due. As we said three weeks ago, there were too many unknowns.
Now we know more. At best, we will reopen the Rock U. studio fully on Monday 11 May and have our spring Rock U. En Seine festival as scheduled on 14, 20, and 21 June. At worst, it’s possible that we won’t be able to reopen at all this spring, or hold a public concert, in which case we will complete the Spring Session online, and the bands will share their performances via livestreams and releases on our social media channels. The reality is likely to be somewhere between these extremes.
We realize this isn’t what anyone expected out of this very promising spring, but we’re all in the same situation. We remain committed to helping our rockers learn and progress musically, creatively, socially, and in all the other ways you have come to value from the Rock U. experience. Our teachers are working harder than ever to make this happen, even while faced with a steeping learning curve of new challenges, technologies and skills. We hope you’ll all continue to rock with us.
Rock U. is a non-profit Association loi 1901, and all of our teachers and staff are independent contractors. Your participation and support is critical to our efforts to sustain this wonderful community. We can’t do it without you. We’ll be sending invoices for the Spring Session of our youth bands and private lessons, plus the long-overdue invoices for Semester 2 of our adult bands, starting next week. Yes, I know I told you that three weeks ago. But I hate asking for money in the best of times, and even though I said I would send the invoices and many of you were extremely supportive in response, I couldn’t bring myself to do it with so much still uncertain. (Also, I just don’t like making the invoices. Making music is more fun.)
If you decide this experience won’t meet your needs, we understand. In that case, you can just pay for the lessons or adult band sessions you’ve already had (youth bands have been open for no charge up until now), and we would welcome you back in the future when we can return to our normal (or new normal) operations.
If you have any questions, as always, please don’t hesitate to contact me at matt@rock-u.fr.
Take us out, Neil:
My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
One-on-one songwriting coaching sessions by appointment. Have you always wanted to write your own song, or have you started one many times but could never finish? Get your creative juices flowing in this one-on-one online session, which will provide you some creative techniques to help you beat those quarantine blues and write a rockin’ song!
Jason Waters is a New York City native with over 15 years of international experience in music teaching, performance and songwriting. He has recorded with renowned musicians like Steve Holley (Paul McCartney) and Angela Workman (Ray Charles), and has developed and facilitated music programs for youth, refugees and divided communities in regional conflict zones. Jason knows that music can serve as a powerful means for building empathy and bringing communities together. He can teach the workshop in English or French.
Time to create! Please email matt@rock-u.fr with any questions.
Why did Beatles guitarist George Harrison always travel with two ukuleles? So he could play music with anyone he met, even if they had never played before! Ukuleles are easy to play, sound great, and are inexpensive, small, and lightweight compared to guitars.
Become part of the Rock U. ukulele nation by learning how to play some of your favourite songs on your uke, with Rock U. teacher James Dempsey! Rock U. is pleased to offer a new online ukulele workshop during the two weeks of school holidays. Absolute beginners are welcome, but more advanced players will also learn a lot.
Dear Rock U. rockers, parents, friends, fans, and families:
We miss you! And we send our hopes that you’re in good health and comfortable during this period of confinement. Our deepest sympathies to all of you who are feeling ill or anxious, or who are dealing with loss. It seems like a cliché to say we’re all in this together, but it’s true.
Here at Rock U., today was supposed to be the first day of our 2020 Spring Session. We were pumped to enjoy a great Winter Concert at La Boule Noire last Sunday, and to spend this week sharing videos and photos and reliving our memories of the show, before starting up band practices again today and next week.
Well, as Mick and Keef famously said, “You can’t always get what you want.”
But don’t forget the next line: if you try sometimes, you get what you need.
So we’re here to announce that, starting now, we’ll be bringing Rock U. to you online until we can get back into the studio. Many of you are currently involved in distance learning at school, but unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to play music together online. Even the shortest latency (“lag”) times in internet connections result in musicians playing as much as a full beat off from each other, meaning it’s not possible to play together in time, something that’s hard enough to do already. But there are a lot of other ways we can learn, progress, and have fun during this time, and we want to get back to rocking right away.
So, here’s what we’re gonna do.
Starting next week (or possibly even sooner for some of our Friday and Saturday bands), we will be resuming weekly band session for ALL of our youth and teen bands. These will be conducted on Zoom, which works on all devices and platforms and is available for free download at https://zoom.us/
We realize each band will be different. Some students may not have the right instruments at home. Others may have more technical proficiency and independence than others. But we’re committed to maintaining some continuity and fun for each band by at least conducting a face-to-face session each week. Some may use this time to choose their songs for the next show, assign roles for the songs, play some musical quiz games, and learn some basic music theory tips. Others may undertake more ambitious projects, such as making and sharing recordings of the songs they had learned for the Winter Concert, writing an original song, or other creative projects. It may even be possible for some bands and students to begin instruction on their spring songs through short breakout sessions within the band chat so we can hit the ground running once Rock U. reopens. And of course we can all share cookie breaks (BYOB = Bring Your Own Biscuits), a cherished Rock U. tradition. We’ve already tested out this meeting format with a few of our Rock U. bands this week, and it’s worked surprisingly well.
Our two main goals for the Spring Session will be to:
Here are some questions you might have:
What do I need to do for my child to take part?
For those of you who are parents of our younger students, we’ll need you to facilitate the online meeting process for your rocker. Please download Zoom on an appropriate device and provide a space for your rocker to participate in the online band session. You will hear from your child’s band teacher before the meeting with a Zoom meeting ID or URL which will allow your child to join. Make sure your child has any available musical instruments handy, and microphone-enabled earphones are a good idea if you have them. And cookies.
For our teen students, most of you already have WhatsApp chat groups with your band and teacher. Make sure you check these regularly for updates about your band’s plans.
How do I get in touch with my (or my child’s) band teacher?
Here you go:
Matt Black: 06 19 69 25 74 matt@rock-u.fr
Rory Quinn: 06 59 99 51 63 rqdrums@gmail.com
Leander Lyons: 06 73 54 25 78 leandelan@gmail.com
James Dempsey: 06 98 20 04 40 jamesdempsey87@gmail.com
Jason Waters: 07 67 78 88 16 music.jasonwaters@gmail.com
When will the Rock U. studio reopen and what happens then?
None of us knows exactly what the future will hold, but we hope to be able to open our doors again to regular activity sometime by the end of April or beginning of May. However, this is only a best guess. Once we know more about the schedule for the resumption of activities, as well as any changes to the school year calendar and the availability of our performance venues, we will get back to you with more information. We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding until then.
How much do I owe for the Spring Session?
At this time, we’re not requiring any payment for the Spring Session. We realize there are too many unknowns, and many of you may be dealing with financial uncertainties of your own as a result of the current situation. We want to keep your rockers moving forward on their musical and social journeys with their bands despite this.
However, as you’re probably aware, Rock U. is a non-profit Association loi 1901. We don’t collect more revenues than our projected expenses, and we don’t keep cash reserves on hand in the same way that a for-profit company might have. Furthermore, all of our teachers and staff are independent contractors, for whom the level of relief expected from the government is lower and less certain than for salaried employees – in fact, many of us don’t qualify for any relief at all, as it’s currently been proposed. Our teachers will be paid for the work they do during this time, so they can continue to make a living, feed their families, and pay their expenses.
So what are we asking of you? As we said, we do expect eventually to be able to deliver nearly the full Spring Session of live practices, in addition to perhaps a full month or more of online activities before that. We’ll be sending invoices for the Spring Session next week. If you value what we do, and your circumstances allow you to support Rock U. through this difficult time by prepaying for the Spring Session, we will gratefully welcome any payments made now, partial or in full. If for some reason we’re not able to resume normal activities as we expect, you’ll be refunded or credited for any unused payments.
I’d rather not pay anything now, what does that mean for my child’s participation?
That’s okay. Your child will NOT lose his or her place in the band for the Spring Session, and may still participate in our online activities until we reopen. Payment will be due once we can get back in the studio.
Will activities stop during the April school holiday?
Nope. You probably can’t go anywhere anyway, and neither can we, so we’ll use the extra two weeks to rock more.
Are you offering anything else to help students keep learning music for now?
Yes! Starting next week, we’ll be posting daily free rock and roll content on our YouTube channel and Facebook page. We’ll be sharing simple tips in our new One Minute Master Class series, more advanced Pro Tips for expert players, as well as features on how to play famous riffs, bits of music trivia and theory, artist appreciation, tours of the Rock U. teachers’ home practice spaces, and recommendations on online resources for rockers. Like and subscribe to be notified as each new day’s post goes up.
We’ll also be offering some new online courses during this time, with different teachers providing personalized instruction in small online classes and some social and fun group activities as well. Stay tuned for more information on these courses coming very soon.
And as our private lesson students already know, we’re continuing with online lessons during this period of closure. If you want to start taking private lessons with one of our instructors via Zoom or Skype, now is an excellent time to begin. You can sign up for private lessons here: https://forms.gle/C6n2pmQWcReGF5C99
We know this isn’t how any of us expected to be spending our time this month. The irony of this situation is that togetherness and music are two things that could be really helpful to most of us during this period of isolation and uncertainty, and they’re two things we can’t have, at least not the way we’re used to. Rock U. is built on the joy of sharing music together in the same physical space and in front of an audience, and that’s been taken away from all of us temporarily. But we’re going to find ways to keep your musical journey moving forward, one little step at a time.
See you online soon, rockin’ and rollin’!
Stay chill, hang tough, make music,
Matt and the Rock U. Crew
We received new communications this afternoon from the Mairie de Paris and have again been in contact with the Santé Publique. The Mairie has now instructed Associations in Paris to temporarily suspend all extrascholastic activities and all non-essential group activities beginning on Monday 16 March, even those involving very small groups. Rock U. will remain open on Saturday 14 March for bands and private lessons. We will then temporarily suspend all of our kids and teen bands, adult bands, and private lessons until further notice, starting on Monday 16 March.
We will remain in consultation with public health and municipal authorities during this period of closure. If it’s at all possible, we hope to reopen in time to begin our Spring Session on schedule on Friday 27 March. We will update you as soon as any new information is available.
La Boule Noire, our wonderful concert venue, has also temporarily closed, and our Winter Concert for kids and teen bands on Sunday 22 March will be cancelled. It really saddens us to deliver this news, as we can’t remember a Rock U. session when so many bands were absolutely crushing it in the studio. We’re so sorry that they won’t have the opportunity to play onstage on 22 March and show the world what they can do. We will consider every possible way to give these amazing kids another chance to perform when circumstances once again allow.
Clearly these events may necessitate other changes to our calendar for the academic year. It is our goal to do whatever we can to minimize the disruption these events are causing to your musical life as we consider all the options, and we welcome both your input and your patience as we figure this out together.
If you take private lessons at Rock U., you may able to continue these lessons remotely via Skype or Zoom. Please contact your lesson teacher directly to discuss whether this could work for you.
For the third time in 24 hours, we have the opportunity to tell you how much we appreciate your patience and understanding. Many of you have expressed to us how much it means to be a part of this musical community, and it means very much to us that you’re part of it, too. We also want to say how sorry we are that we’re not able to stay open during a time when good fellowship and musical inspiration are sure to be things we’ll all need more of in our daily lives. We eagerly look forward to resuming this as soon as possible. And while you’re stuck at home, pick up an instrument… and play some music!
Dear Rock U. participants and parents,
First off, we want to express our hopes that you are all doing well amidst the current climate of tension and uncertainty. Music is a powerful mood adjuster, so apply it abundantly! And of course we hope you are all in the best of health.
We wanted to let you know a bit about the status of Rock U. activities and our planning for whatever may come.
Bands and lessons: Rock U. Bands and lessons will continue as normal until further notice, or until the situation changes. We have been in direct contact with both the Mairie du 7ème and the Santé Publique, who have reaffirmed the guidelines listed below:
Rock U. concert 22 March: You may be aware that large public gatherings such as concerts have been restricted in many affected regions, and that some restrictions already apply in France. Again, we have been directly in touch with health authorities and the venue to monitor the situation, and for the moment, smaller concert venues like La Boule Noire remain open. If nothing changes, the Rock U. concert will take place as scheduled next Sunday 22 March.
A final note: We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we all navigate some unfamiliar territory. There is a lot of information floating around out there, some of it inaccurate, and it makes sense for all of us to apply moderation and common sense in both our information gathering and our information sharing. We at Rock U. will continue to follow the situation closely, consult appropriate health authorities, and follow the official guidelines and rules provided. We will of course inform you of any meaningful changes to the status of our programs.
And now… let’s get back to rocking! Stay healthy and make music!