Entertainment

When the 2003 film School of Rock starring Jack Black became a hit, you could almost hear thousands of entrepreneurial foreheads being slapped at once in "why didn't I think of that?" dismay.

LOUIS DeLUCA/DMN

Students from Austin's Paul Green School performed a benefit concert Sunday.

Not that it mattered. They were already beaten to that classic-rock beat.

For nearly five years, Philadelphia musician Paul Green had been running such a school – one that taught grade-school children how to play everything from AC/DC to Frank Zappa as a way to preserve the art form, among other goals.

Though the film's producers claimed ignorance about the Paul Green School of Rock Music, despite Mr. Green's ownership of www.schoolofrock.com, when the flick was conceived, that movie's had an immeasurably positive effect for the school. Popular awareness, buoyed by the documentary Rock School two years later, begat expansion to dozens of cities. And it's now arrived in Dallas.

The first area branch of the Paul Green School of Rock Music opened with a weekend-long open house at a converted dance studio at 5606 Dyer St., just blocks from a conflagration of collegiate nightclubs such as the Green Elephant and the Barley House. A benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of North Texas featuring a band of 10 students from the school's Austin branch, which has been open since 2005, wrapped the weekend on Sunday at the Loft above the Palladium Ballroom.

"We provide an environment in which young people can focus on skills that are not cultivated in common educational institutions," said music director Mark Warner, an active musician (the Judas Priest tribute act Judas Rising), as are most of the school's teachers. "Our goal is to empower these young people and this keen knowledge of music education and performance-based expression."

The facilities are clean and functional (amp, instruments, chairs, a table and a small boom box). The lounge area features album covers of classic bands included in the curriculum across the walls. Some are predictable (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Journey); some aren't (Danzig, Nirvana, Beck). Rehearsal rooms vary in size. Larger ones are for the group practice that's critical to the school's mission: quarterly live performances of the classics, just like an acting school, dance studio or even a youth sports program.

"My youngest daughter is into competitive cheerleading, and I liken this a lot to that," Mr. Warner said. "She's very passionate about it, as are these kids about playing rock. She hangs out and has fun with like-minded kids; this is another version of that."

The school's not cheap: $295 a month for 16 hours of instruction and rehearsal time. But kids and parents are biting: 20 are signed up already, 20 more are expected by the end of June, with 200 the ultimate goal. Area branches are planned, too.

"I'm a huge fan of rock, and I think that it's so cool that there's a school set up now to teach it," said Zachary Jones, 16, a drummer who's an inaugural student at the Dallas branch thanks to his father, Richard, who used to sing in rock bands. "Being able to go there and get a band together in a structured way has to be a great experience."

Austin school standout Trey Gish, 16, a singer and bassist who's attended that branch since it opened, agreed. "It gives you the opportunity to play instead of just practice," he said.

"It's the act of playing shows and being on the road that's the most fun part about it."

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