Together with his children, he took lessons in piano playing from Russian-based pianist of Irish origin John Field and later studied music theory under the guidance of Iosif I.

Some of his most popular songs are noted to be on the rather morose, melancholic, and somber side such as, “The bell is ringing in the same sound”, “Justification”, “Both boring and sad”, “Winter evening”, “You cannot understand my sadness”, and“Parting.” His romance "After the Battle," with words written by the Ukrainian-Greek poet Nikolay Shcherbina, was popular among naval populations since the Crimean War, The song, in contemporaneity, has been reformed into its current form, "The sea spreads wide," and has many variations and instrumental arrangements.

Of great importance for him was his friendship with the composer Alexander Egorovich Varlamov, whose fraternal commorodry managed to quell his hardships and endemic loneliness he felt all his life.

[3] Despite the rapid and sustained success of his published songs and compositions, Gurilyov spent most of his adult life in poverty, earning his keep as a private music teacher and editor.

Due to his affinity for clear melodies, and cantilena continuity, Gurilyov could be considered closer to Glinka's vein of first-hand, folk deference than Tchaikovsky's more idealistic approach.

On the other hand, a number of romances were written in more structural, less archetypically decadent, systematically melodramatic style, anticipatory of the full-breasted works of Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky.