Registration open for summer rock camps
Summer is almost here, which means the musically inclined youth of Vacaville do not have to worry about letting their minds wander. They will have an avenue to perform and build upon their love of music.
Live Music Center's summer camps are back in person this year with a slew of new offerings, as well as its popular Teen Rock Camp which started in 2015.
Co-owner Megan Tucker said one of the new camps is a songwriting workshop.
“(It) teaches students how to build a song from the ground up, including the musical part of it — which includes the chords and the harmonies as well as the lyrics,” she said.
The workshop will be from 10 a.m. to noon from June 13 to 17. It is open to ages 10 and up.
The other new camp is a Jazz Improv Boot Camp, which Tucker said would teach intermediate to advanced students how to improvise and increase their soloing abilities. It will be from 10 a.m. to noon July 4 to 8.
The new Junior Rock Camp is geared toward ages 8 to 12 and imparts many of the same lessons as the Teen Rock Camp.
“We teach them how to play together as a band,” Tucker said. “We teach them how to have stage presence, what good outfits look like on stage, how to do their makeup and how to perform as well as how to learn the actual songs.”
The Junior Rock Camp will be offered from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. from June 27 to July 1.
Tucker said the Teen Rock Camp, for ages 13 to 20, is the same as before: teaching musicians to build their confidence and hone their stage presence, attire and promotion. The camp ends with a performance at Journey Downtown.
“We teach them basically what it means to be a professional musician in a band,” she said.
The Teen Rock Camp is 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekdays July 11 to 22 with the live performance July 23.
The other camps include Teen Rock Basics, 10 a.m. to noon June 20 to 24, which teaches campers the fundamentals of being in a band without the performance at the end; and Live Sound Engineering, 10 a.m. to noon July 25 to 29, which teaches everything from putting a PA system together to enhancing sound quality.
Tucker said she tries to encourage a sense of collaboration among the camps rather than competition.
“We always teach them from Day One that it is important to work together and not compete against each other,” she said. “Even if they're in different bands, everybody supports everybody else.”
Tucker hopes students will take away a sense of musicianship as well as the confidence they can apply to all aspects of life.
“Even if they decide not to pursue music, I would really love for them to build that confidence of being able to do something that was challenging and accomplish it,” she said.
Live Music Center is in the Alamo Plaza at 874 Alamo Drive. For more information on the camps and to register, visit Livemusiccenter.com/summersessions.