Established in 2015, MusicGurus is an online learning platform comprising thousands of interactive lessons to help music lovers to become the musicians they’ve always wanted to be. Courses of sequenced lessons from experts in the industry are offered across numerous instruments, genres and styles. This review focusses on the vocal offering, covering pop singing, musical theatre and some sub-licensed classical masterclasses.
The website itself is easy to use; added to my dashboard were the following courses:
- Essential Skills for Singers (with Juliet Russell, vocal coach on ITV’s The Voice)
- Funky Fundamentals for Pop Singing (with Kim Chandler, one of the world’s leading contemporary vocal coaches)
- Learn Musical Theatre Singing with a West End Vocal Coach (with Rachel Lynes, a former West End performer)
- Learning Singing with Alfie Boe
- Learn to Sing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (with Alfie Boe)
- Licks, Riffs & Runs for Pop Singers (with Jono McNeil, professional vocal coach)
- Mozart - Arias (with Chen Reiss, professional opera singer)*
- Singing Masterclass (with Joan Rodgers, professional opera singer)*
*These are sub-licensed to MusicGurus and are on a revenue share with the Masterclass Media Foundation. These are not lessons but videos of masterclasses with amateur opera singers.
The courses (apart from the final two) contain between 18 and 25 lessons, which can be viewed at the student’s own pace. Some have downloadable backing-tracks, and others, downloadable exercise sheets. The level of difficulty (beginner or intermediate) is also indicated on each course and each lesson.
Pedagogically, it is thorough. The courses devote time to physical and vocal warm-ups and vocal health, ensuring students are thoroughly prepared for a singing session. It is easy for a student to follow along and there are tips to reinforce points. There are, naturally, overlaps in terms of content when it comes to warm-ups, but not all students will view all lessons.
The overarching theme of these singing courses is, noticeably, the focus on the meaning of the text, characterization and so forth. Boe focusses on this to a great extent in his course, though I’ll admit to losing interest by the third video of him speaking.
In both Russell’s and Boe’s courses, feedback on performances focuses on ways of changing the voice to reflect the emotion and meaning; there were occasions when I found their suggestions to be less technical and sometimes the advice a little vague.
In contrast, in the ‘classical’ masterclasses the professionals demonstrate and explain the techniques required (shape of the mouth, placement of the tongue) in order to put across the meaning of the text. That said, there was transformation in all the performances after coaching with any of these ‘gurus’.
I do feel that there comes a point where any connection made by the student to this material cannot continue, particularly at the beginner level. In all cases, a song has been chosen for a singer to perform and coaching has taken place to improve this performance. I question if a student can take much of this advice and apply it to a song of their own. This relies on the student to decode these lessons and place it in their own context, something which not all will be able to do. This is pertinent to the Funky Fundamentals and Licks, Riffs & Runs, where there is little context given (McNeil gives a little) and more substantial examples would have been useful.
The students being coached are excellent singers, so when it comes to feedback, interpretive suggestions and changes are made. I would have liked to have seen some examples where singers were asked to focus on technique in order to reach notes or breathing around phrases and so on, to be more representative of those logging on.
At £15 per month for as many lessons as you like, and with the option to cancel at any time, what you get is a really good deal. £15 is unlikely to get you more than a half-hour session face-to-face, so accessing something like this is a bargain and more convenient. Vocally, it gives you a great start; it certainly made me think of the number of singers, guitarists, and drummers I have had at GCSE and A Level with no formal lessons. This would be a brilliant resource for them and could be subsidised by departments or schools. Plus, you get to be taught by Alfie Boe!
