Rock Dojo

Rocking out to new ideas leads to innovative and successful business

When one of Brian Parham’s guitar students at Matt Dishman Community Center kept cancelling to attend a martial arts class, he got an idea.

In 2015, Brian and his wife, Sophie, launched Rock Dojo guitar lessons. They teach kids ages six to 12 how to play, perform and compose on the guitar using a system based on martial arts. The students are rewarded on their achievements and progress from white belt to black belt by receiving stripes on their guitars.

“As far as I know it’s completely unique and innovative,” Brian said.

When Brian and his wife went to the SBDC, they were “music teachers who had a really good idea.” Now they have a physical product. The SBDC helped them produce the Rock Dojo student handbook, which is a comic book-style guitar workbook for kids designed to teach them how to play guitar in an ensemble, Brian said.

The SBDC is now assisting Brian to rework the Rock Dojo website and helping the business with social media.

“Their services are amazing,” Brian said. “We’re on the cusp of doing great things in our industry. None of it would be possible without the SBDC.”