Seven-year-old Angelina Jordan from Norway recently astonished listeners by imitating jazz singer Billie Holiday when she sang "Gloomy Sunday" during her audition for Norway's Got Talent.
The small girl told the judges she chose the song after listening to a recording of Holiday on YouTube.
And a few months ago, nine-year-old Amira Willighagen amazed judges with her mature-sounding voice when she sang Puccini arias on Holland's Got Talent.
Even more amazing is Amira's statement that she is completely self-taught. She says that she learned how to sing by watching YouTube tutorials.
"My brother Vincent plays violin, and I also wanted to do something," she told the judges. "...so I thought, I'm going to sing...and then I heard opera songs, which I found very beautiful. And that's when I started singing," she said.
Before YouTube, it was unlikely that a nine-year-old would teach herself to sing opera, or a young Norwegian girl would learn to croon a jazz standard like Billie Holiday. YouTube has become a repository for music of all styles and ethnicities, giving everybody an instant listening library at their fingertips.
And the proliferation of tutorials on YouTube enables talented singers to learn just about any musical style under the sun.
You might want to call it 'YouTube University,' as a friend of mine recently did after a marathon session of viewing tutorials on the site.
Other singers have taken advantage of all YouTube has to offer, including American singer Jennifer Grout, who recently made it into the top three on the pan-Arabic talent show Arabs Got Talent.
Grout sang classical Arabic music on the international talent show, accompanying herself on the oud, a traditional Arabic stringed instrument.
Grout was a student in a traditional opera program at McGill University in Canada when she discovered Arabic music. "I came across an article online about the famous Lebanese singer Fairouz, and I was just really mesmerized by her singing," Grout recently told CNN.
"It was like nothing I had heard before."
She started listening to more Arabic music online, and learned the classical Arabic style of singing, eventually moving to Morocco to pursue her passion.
On YouTube, anyone could learn to sing music from a faraway land.
Want to learn Tuvan throat singing? YouTube has tutorials.
Is classical Indian music more your style? Study online with your choice of teachers.
The human voice is the one instrument that everyone in the world possesses. And these three singers have shown that it is possible to learn just about any singing style in the world at the global music school that is YouTube.
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