Angie Fritz believes that no life is complete unless it has music in it. She sings every day, following her passion for vocals. Her band of six years is on a break, but she still spends numerous hours a week honing her vocal skills and practicing the guitar, bass, drums and keyboard. Fritz is excited to make connections with venue managers and to meet other musicians while on tour this summer.

Angie Fritz is 15.

A student at The Paul Green School of Rock Music in Chicago, one of 43 Paul Green schools nationwide, Fritz calls the school her second home. Fritz and her fellow schoolmates will hit Lawrence on their tour at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Granada Theater.

Paul Green started out as a guitar teacher in a small apartment in Philadelphia. He slowly started bringing kids together and having them perform as groups. Green realized that when kids played together rather than individually, they worked a lot harder. Green wanted a place for young musicians to apply what they learned and perform in front of audiences, and so the original Paul Green School of Rock Music was established.

For ten years, Paul Green has taught with the belief that the best way to learn almost anything is by doing it. Students at the School of Rock Music can start as early as age seven while learning how to play music in front of an audience.

Rick Carney, general manager of the Austin school, said the School of Rock taught music theory in reverse.

“Most kids learn their scales and notes first,” Carney said. “But they don’t have to learn all of this to play in a show. We show them the songs and work from there. The kids listen to music, analyze it, learn how to play it and they learn the music theory in that process.”

Carney said some students came in as beginners while others had already taken lessons. He said the school operated on different levels. For some students it’s an average after-school activity like soccer, while others take it more seriously.

The school does not have recitals for its students; instead students perform on stage at various clubs and venues. Carney said that if a student was in the program for a year, they performed at least nine concerts.

Fritz was one of the few students selected to be at the “all-star” level. The Midwest All-Stars were chosen as the most talented students from various Paul Green schools by their instructors. The school gave 24 students selected in the Midwest an opportunity to perform nine shows in 10 days.

Carney, who is also director for the Midwest All-Stars, said the all-stars were assigned their songs a few weeks before they came together. About 99 percent of the material was already learned, he said, and they only get two and a half days to rehearse before they start playing shows. Carney said this process was part of teaching the students to become real rockers.

“We teach them more than just the songs,” Carney said. “We teach them how to be musicians. We don’t spoon-feed them material, we want them to learn to create and become rocks stars. Our goal is to create kids that are actually musicians and not just mimicking what we do.”

The school may not allow students to mimic their instructors, but Hollywood mimicked the school. Carney said Viacom pitched an idea for a reality TV show following Paul Green. Six months after the project fizzled, the script for “The School of Rock” came out.

“The Jack Black movie is just a fictionalized account of what we do,” Carney said. “They simplified things. What we’re going for is at a much higher level. The movie is a more sanitized, cleaned up fairy tale happy ending version than reality. But our kids get a happier ending because they’re really performing. In a year our typical student will learn about 25 songs for shows while in the movie they got 1 or 2 songs.”

Fritz said the main similarity between the Hollywood movie and her real life school was the environment. She said the movie captures the essence of a fun music teacher teaching kids how to play and understand classic rock.

Carney, a singer and guitar player, said almost everyone who taught at the schools were professional musicians. The instructors’ music backgrounds allow them to give students adequate history of rock music.

“If you’re going to be a composer, you study great composers such as Beethoven or Bach,” Carney said. “If you’re going to be a rocker, you study great rockers. Eventually you’ll be able to have your own skill set. Our Beethoven is Led Zeppelin.”

The instructors hold the kids up to the same standards as professionals. Carney said the goal is not for people to say, “this is pretty good for kids”, but to instead simply say, “this is pretty good.” Carney encourages people to see the kids play live. He said that although it was an admittedly odd thing to see teenage kids playing rock covers, it really was an exciting time.

“The first time I saw the All-Stars play I was completely blown away,” Carney said. “I’m amazed at their level of performance. Much more of a performance and entertainment then you would expect to see from kids of this age.”

Fritz said she could hardly contain her excitement at being chosen to play with other kids her age who were amazing musicians. She said she was psyched to go on tour and the summer was a perfect time to explore this career because there was no high school to get in the way.

Although School of Rock students take their rock education seriously, they are required to keep up with their mainstream academics. In order to stay at the School of Rock, students need to keep their grades up.

“School of Rock is teaching kids technique and how to have an original band,” said John Burkhardt, a 16-year-old All-Star drummer. “High school is still your basic education. As much as I wish I could focus only on rock, I know it’s important to have that general schooling.”

For Fritz, it’s all about having your priorities straight. She said it’s wasn’t the easiest thing, especially when she has songs to learn. But she knows school comes first. She hopes to continue her rock schooling with higher education at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Fritz said she wasn’t sure exactly what would happen after she leaves the School of Rock following her high school graduation, but one thing is for sure.

“No matter what I end up doing,” she said, “I want to have music with me.”

- Edited by Rustin Dodd