Harrison'S Music Academy

Choir masterclasses, advanced organ piano and vocal tuition and coaching in ALL styles, performers and choirs for weddings and public events

Jess writes:

Robin was my high school teacher. I have never had such a compassionate teacher who would do anything to see his students succeed. He even stayed behind in his own time every day to help me and my development. I went on to receive A*s in practical and theory. Although the most important part of my learning was Robin's excellent coaching skills which took me from a mediocre singer to coming second in a national singing competition with 12, 000 contestants at the age of 18. I would not hesitate having any tuition from Robin, my only regret is that I now live too far away from him to carry on!

Sue writes:
Sue Hunter (MD at PSI Global Ltd Group)

Robin is a highly skilled teacher of voice enhancement taking good care not to stress vocal chords. He has not only improved my singing voice but also enhanced my verbal communication. . As a teacher of performance singing he also improved my presentation, giving me a much more relaxed approach to public speaking.

He is also the choir master for Gospel Shock, a group endeavouring to inspire through song.

I have no hesitation in recomending Robin for those who wish to improve their voice both spoken and in song.



Ed writes:
Singing:
The best commendation I think I can give Dr Harrison is that after every lesson, I come away with a buzz, whistling the tune of whatever I've been singing. I don't really go just because I want to get good results in exams, I go because I want to become a good singer and because I love singing. That means that coming away having felt like I've improved, like I've enjoyed singing and that I haven't just repeated what I did last week is fantastic.

I think that last point is really important. I've been going to singing lessons for about 5 months, something like that, and I still haven't done the same exercise more than twice. I think that Dr Harrison stands out in that his methods work for everyone because they're different for everyone; tailor-made teaching. What works for you works for you and if it works, don't knock it.

The individuality that Dr Harrison is also important because the music is performed by you and not written by whoever so it has to come from you and be expressed as you want it to be and Dr Harrison helps you do this in his methods for expressive singing and his freedom in that he does what you want to do. You want to sing Bach, do it. You want to learn part of Shostakovitch's Lady Macbeth, do it. You fancy learning a bit of jazz singing for a change, great he has just the exercise and just the song to get you going.

Mondays are the best days of the week, I get through school and then I have singing and piano lessons with Dr Harrison.







Piano:

I learnt classical piano for associated board exams for a long time and hadn't really done anything else. I kind of wanted to branch out a bit and, not having any experience in improvising or jazz rhythms didn't matter. I said I wanted to do some improvisation so that's what we do. He shows me how with little exercises that teach without you knowing your working or practising until you have to use that particular skill and you realise you can just do it. I feel like he makes it easy to learn because you keep doing new things, he shows you how in a way that's unique to both him and you because if that's how you learn best then that's how you're going to learn. There's no 'This is how you do it, now repeat a million times' it just flows naturally and you learn how you want to.

I still keep up the classical piano and I bet I could ask to throw in other styles and genres, for want of a better term, and we'd just roll with it. I think that keeping up with the classical aspect helps improve my technique so that I don't have to think about it, I just do it.