Day #4 | Sussex Rocks 2014 | Monsters Of Rock with Richard Perkins

The penultimate day of Sussex Rocks Summer School is all about band performance. Students spent the early morning session rehearsing their songs to perform to their peers during a late-morning play back session with peer critique.

Bands assembled themselves into the rehearsal rooms to focus their attention on song structure, intros and endings, and rehearsing with the singers.

Intro Riff: ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ is arguably Tony Iommi’s greatest, and most popular, riff; it could be contested that the intro riff to ‘Paranoid’ is greater, or more famous, but ‘Iron Man’ sure has captured the imagination of young learners since it was first featured in the Marvel Studios movie of the same name in 2008.

After lunch the Sussex Rockers worked studiously in the rehearsal rooms to finish learning their songs for Friday’s performance at Willingdon Community School at 3pm in the Drama Hall.

Expect to hear: ‘R U Mine?’ by Arctic Monkeys, ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day, ‘Grace’ by Jeff Buckley, and ‘Hey Stoopid’ by Alice Cooper among many other great classic rock songs!

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Day #3 | Sussex Rocks 2014 | Monsters Of Rock with Richard Perkins

We have reached the midway point of Sussex Rocks Summer School and students have begun to hone their playing and performance skills in readiness for Friday’s gig.

The morning session started with some ‘Riff-Off’ practice. Students played ‘guess the riff’ game; whereby each student performs a chosen riff and the group has to guess the song name; the band name; and the guitarist who wrote/played the riff. It’s a fun game – try it!

Intro Riff: ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ by U2

The Edge is renowned for his relative simplistic approach to guitar playing and creative use of delay effects that have sculpted U2’s sound for the past 30 years. Here he uses a twin delay of 120ms and 360ms to build a lush texture using a ‘D’ chord arpeggio over D, G, Bm and A chords.

During the late-morning and afternoon sessions the group rehearsed their songs in bands. Songs included: ‘Time Is Running Out’ by Muse, ‘Hey Stoopid’ by Alice Cooper, and a short medley of classic rock riffs!

PHILL’S BIT – Day 3

Day 3 saw the drummers start with a series of warm ups and composition exercises. One of the more popular ideas was that of saying what they had for breakfast and then playing the rhythmic pattern of those words on the drum kit. For example “I had sausage roll” translates as 1&a 2 + 3

We also started splitting into bands and learning the group songs that will be played on Friday at the end of week concert. There is still loads to learn but they are making great progress and having loads of fun.

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