I found him on YouTube, and I was astounded with the amount of attention his singing exercise videos are garnering. I decided to check his website out in Teachable, but it was all bare bones. I’ve gone back to Google to check for reviews. Unfortunately, I found none. This review might be the first one for Jacobs Vocal Academy.

With little to work on, in all honesty, I tried my best to perform a deep search for this academy, which most products I review don’t require. The result of my effort is that it was all over the place. I mean literally. You’d find him in Amazon Music, SkillShare, YouTube, etcetera. Only a few have taken the time to write about his course, making me think that I might have stepped into a landmine.

I’m not complaining. The reverse is true as a matter of fact. It only made me interested in unraveling this mystery, dear Watson. With a company that provides viral-level free content on the web, I’m sure that this academy has a lot more to offer at the right price.

So let’s see what we’ll know once we open this Pandora’s box named Jacobs Vocal Academy.

Have You Heard of This Jacob?

Nope. I never knew Jacob, who started an online academy or course in the industry. It took a while before I pinpointed the person whose name is on the company. The guy’s from Denmark, but according to his Udemy profile, he’s a voice instructor in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He’s also a performer and obtained a degree from James Madison University.

I’m assuming that a massive chunk of his popularity came from his YouTube videos. He started it five years ago and has more than 350 uploaded videos to date. Most of those videos have more than 100k views peppered with some million views, which is not an easy feat.

The most exciting part about his videos is that they aren’t overproduced. Play one, and you’ll get audio and a flat image with a text overlay. I was amazed by this. Not because many people feed on his content, but how it actually shows a no-BS approach in singing and training.

I guess we know enough about the man behind it, and that should be enough.

Jacobs Vocal Academy: Voice Mastery Course

Let’s start with the price. An All-Access Pass to all courses is $19 per month. The training videos are more than 20 hours of training. If you watch an hour per day and don’t look back on any of the videos, you can complete it before the first month. If you cancel, that’s only 19 bucks out of your pocket.

However, the course offers more than the training videos. You’ll get to be a part of JVA’s community of singers, and you’ll have a dedicated coach for you. The company price each of these addons as:

• $99 for the community
• $99 for the coach

It says that the video course is worth $797. If you add all that up, the program itself costs $995. And you can get all that for $19 per month. It also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

The Training Courses

The training videos cover the basics. Some of the topics are:

• Breathing
• Posture
• Support
• Rhythm
• Tune
• Relaxation
• Rehearsal Singing

The videos can be categorized into two: animated technical videos and prerecorded instructional videos from a pro.

In SkillShare, these videos are neatly separated from each other.

Bonuses

Aside from the community and the one-on-one coach, you also get lessons about music theory, piano, and guitar. And if you keep your subscription, you can expect that there will be new content. The SkillShare channel doesn’t update that much anymore, but the YouTube and Teachable ones do.

And lastly, you’ll have access to the numerous exercises JVA offers. They are practical and straightforward. You can just prepare yourself, click on play, and start following the instructions. Doing them religiously can ensure your improvement.

However, this isn’t a big bonus since you can consume most of the free stuff from YouTube.

Jacob Vocal Academy: The Big Con

The biggest problem I had with this is that it’s confusing. It’s a challenge to get an idea of what you’re getting and who’s who. And this is something that this review will help you out. Let me get the elephant in the room and tell you about JVA’s four key people:

• the one behind the company,
• the one behind the free courses,
• the one that teaches single paid lessons
• the one that presents the paid full courses

The one behind the company is Jacob Obling Nygaard, the one I’ve talked about earlier. He only has a few video/audio courses under him and sparingly teaches. He’s mostly focused on marketing and keeping the academy running. So don’t expect that you’ll be able to talk to him. Treat him as the academy’s principal.

The one behind the free courses can be anyone’s guess. Since the videos don’t show anything other than an image, it’s hard to figure out. Some were voiced by Jacob, but some clearly aren’t. If you watch a lot of them, you’ll notice some inconsistencies with the voice like some videos have accents on them. It’s not actually essential to know who he is. I’m just covering all the bases here.

The one that teaches some single paid lessons and content with some technicalities introduces himself as Nick. Not much is known about him. And he won’t be on the main course, but he’s the one narrating the animated ones. Some people gripe about him since people complain that there are too many people in JVA.

Lastly, the one that teaches the paid full courses is Hanne Lynge. She’s a veteran singer and guitarist from Denmark. She has a band, The Hanne Lynge Band. And she will be the one who will teach the course for you.

Personally, I find her calming and like the accent. I guess that’s no surprise. Many popular YouTubers nowadays are Danish. Anyway, I’ll bring this to a conclusion.

The Conclusion

Jacob’s Vocal Academy was a messy affair to deal with. It’s perplexing to make a decision if you want to take the course or not. There’s little information, and we know ourselves we can’t just jump the gun after reading a marketer’s copy.

At the end of the day, this is by far the cheapest out of the courses I’ve reviewed (you can find the other reviews here). It isn’t risky to take, but it doesn’t mean that it’s terrible. The content of video training is worthwhile. Considering the amount you need to pay for the premium, I can tell you that it’s a small investment that promises significant returns that deliver.

On the other hand, despite having a bit of a negative tone in the middle of the review, the YouTube videos and free content are something that I respect. It gives you easy access to vocal exercises. It is beneficial for budding singers who can’t afford to have a vocal coach.

You can check out the academy through this link: Jacob Vocal Academy. If you want to check the introduction video for the first course, go here: JVA How to Sing.

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