About Paul

Welcome to Kids Guitar Dojo! My name is Paul Greig I’ve been playing guitar as a live performer and session musician for over 20 years, performing alongside some of the finest musicians in Australia. I was born and raised in Tamworth, Australia’s country music capital, where it was as a teenager that I was first bitten by the guitar bug. I became obsessed with learning whatever I could, inspired by many ace blues, country, and rock players in my home town.
To continue my development as a musician I finished my degree in contemporary music, majoring in guitar and composition. I had the good fortune to study with top notch players and composers from Australia and abroad including the legendary Jeff “Skunk” Baxter of Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers fame. 

It was while studying jazz for my degree that I began to see the connection between the theoretical aspects of music and the country, blues, and rock riffs and licks that I learned and played during my teenage years. So I understand learning (and teaching) guitar from two important perspectives: the self-taught approach and the music school approach.

In 2006, I released my debut solo album, with one of the tracks reaching the finals of The John Lennon Songwriting Competition.

In 2015 created Learn Guitar cafe an online guitar teaching website where I launched my first book Guitar Mastery Unlocked and released many other courses http://www.learnguitarcafe.com/

How Did The Idea Of Kids Guitar Dojo Begin?

Having two young children of my own I soon realised there was a gap in the market for a website purely aimed at young beginners. In 2017 I decided to gather up my 30 yrs of teaching and playing experience and build an online curriculum for kids guitar lessons in the online space and started to work on Kids Guitar Dojo.

I was able to test refine ideas and concepts to further enhance the learning experience with my own kids and students coming for private lessons.

Training Wheels For Guitar

I was experimenting with the idea of individual fretboard markers back in 2007 when I was teaching at schools in Sydney. These were simple coloured stickers but after sometime I discovered their were only so many primary colours that could be used. I came back to this simple concept and refined in and came up with the Fast Track Fretboard System. Designed specifically to help young beginners navigate their way around the fretboard they have proven to help kids start playing the guitar as young as 4yrs of age.

Why Gamification ?

While building the platform for KGD I was studying gamification under the guiding hand of Yukai Chou, the worlds leading authority on gamification. I soon realised that his concepts could be incorporated into my online platform and help motivate and encourage students to practice. Practice became fun and was no longer a chore – kids and parents were seeing results and felt great about their achieveme

Rhythm and Timing Is King

One of the key ingredient to becoming a fine musician no matter what style of music or instrument you want to play is timing. Many struggle with playing in time and this can be especially seen in Adults. In fact I would say this is the number one weakness I spot in guitar players. I decided I would make this a prime objective when creating the curriculum and created the character Dr Rhythm. While keeping it fun and engaging we use teh cartoon character to explain how bars and beats are made simply by using fractions. They say music can help kids with mathematics I can see why.

Backing Tracks

We start using Backing Tracks in the very first lessons in the membership area. This is the icing on the cake and really makes the first few weeks fun for the kids. They immediately begin to make the connection between playing in time, tapping their foot and counting bars. I soon realised that this was a vital part in the students progress as it was clear too see they were having fun and felt a connection with the music.

KIDS GUITAR DOJO IS A FRESH AND FUN WAY FOR YOUNG BEGINNERS TO GET STARTED ON THE GUITAR.

The book comes with a pass into the academy website where the student will find video lessons taking them step by step through the chapters in the book. Time watching lessons is logged and there are quiz questions to further their understanding. Students can win prizes and badges of achievement for practicing and keep a record of their practice on the website dashboard.

The book also comes with a set of removable fretboard markers, which we call “training wheels for the guitar”. The student is encouraged to remove these as they progress through the book as they develop an understanding of the fretboard.

These markers are simply road signs designed to catch the students attention and assist them with fretboard navigation. In volume 1 we focus on rhythmic fundamentals and fretboard navigation, while still playing tunes and building confidence along the way. Understanding rhythm and building co-ordination is key and a essential foundation for youngsters and makes stepping into reading music a lot easier.

BY THE END OF BOOK ONE

What Makes Guitar Dojo For Kids Unique ?

Most guitar teaching materials for youngsters are outdated and boring. Student’s want to practice and feel inspired to pick up the guitar and this is a program that achieves just that.