ian davidson vocal coach
I guess I’m just a “singing nerd” at the end of the day! I love singing, I love
listening to other people sing and I love it when people start to truly express
themselves through their singing voices with power, presence and confidence.
I’ve been singing all my life. I started out singing in a very good, local High
Anglican church choir at the age of 7 that exposed me to harmony and
counterpoint, Requiems and Latin - all whilst wearing robes and a frilly ruff! I
managed to obtain my Bishops’ Chorister Award just before my voice broke, before
moving to the Alto and then finally the Tenor sections of the choir. At this
stage my ear was drifting away from classical choral singing and more towards
Soul, RnB and Gospel (thanks Whoopi Goldberg and Sister Act!) As a Gospel
Singer, I sang with the Liverpool Love & Joy Gospel Choir for many years,
touring all over the country from small town halls to football stadia - I had
truly fallen in love with this very expressive and emotive art form, and
eventually set up Sanctified Gospel Choir who went on to win a Gospel
Entertainment & Music (GEM) Award in 2005. I managed to gain a place to study
music at the prestigious Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) which
was set up by former-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, and graduated with honours in
2003. During my time studying at LIPA, I had the opportunity to sing and perform
with a vast array of talented artists and performers and fell into providing
backing vocals for a number of different main-stream artists of the time. Having
discovered over time that I really enjoyed singing backing vocals, was happier
with my back to an audience directing as opposed to standing in the spotlight,
it was no surprise to me that I ended up gravitating towards teaching singing as
a side hustle. And that’s what it was, a side hustle, I had no clue what I was
doing and that’s when I fortunately discovered the Speech Level Singing
methodology or SLS. Ian Davidson Directing Liverpool Community Choir 2 Ian
Davidson and Sanctified Gospel Choir Ian Davidson Headshot Ian Davidson
Directing Liverpool Community Choir 1 Ian Davidson Teaching at Vocology in
Practice Conference Ian Davidson Training Teachers in Warsaw, Poland Ian
Davidson Training Teachers in Cork, Ireland Ian Davidson at the Europe Vocal
Camp 2017 Training in the Speech Level Singing (SLS) teaching methodology,
studying under world renowned teachers such as Seth Riggs, Dave Stroud, Wendy
Parr, John Henny, Dean Kaelin, Greg Enriquez, Jeffrey Skouson and Kathy Kennedy,
coincided with my being invited to Lecture in Gospel and A Cappella at my former
university, LIPA. Upon completion of my initial SLS training, I was then also
invited to Lecture in Vocals at LIPA and taught there for 12 years in total,
teaching one-to-one and group singing classes to the students on the Music,
Acting and Dance degree and foundation level courses. After achieving Level 3
status within the SLS organisation, I wanted to broaden out my knowledge of
vocal pedagogy, vocal harmonics and acoustics, and along with a number of other
teachers from around the world came together under the guidance of Dave Stroud
to form what is now known as Vocology in Practice or ViP. Shortly after helping
to found ViP, where I served as Education Director for a year, I obtained my MA
in Music from the University of Salford, where I focussed my studies on the
Psychology of Performance and the condition, "Adophobia" (literally the Fear of
Singing), on which I wrote extensively for my thesis. I work hard to keep myself
informed on the latest pedagogical research and developments within in the world
of vocal health and how to teach to ensure that I can provide the very best for
my clients. I’ve also recently started training in Laryngeal Massage so that I
can bring this highly beneficial manual therapy to the my clients. Highlights of
my career to date include being a Lecturer in Singing at the Liverpool Institute
for Performing Arts (LIPA) and helping to establish and teach on the singing
program on the BA(hons) in Musical Theatre at the Institute of the Arts
Barcelona. I have also been fortunate to train voices at Rare Studios in
Liverpool. I arranged and directed the backing choir on the 2012 UK Christmas
No.1 song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" on behalf of the Justice Collective,
for which I was awarded a Gold Disc. Aside from my teaching studio, I am the
choral director for the Liverpool Community Choir, training the lead voices for
the Birkenhead Operatic Society and have recently started training voices for
the Pro Vocal Artist artist development program. Over the last ten years or so,
my career has taken me down the path of teacher training and I am fortunate to
train teachers for two organisations; BAST (Be A Singing Teacher), where I am
one of only 5 teacher trainers in the world, and MVT (Modern Vocal Training),
the latter of which I serve as an Educational Director. I absolutely love
training new teachers; I find it to be really invigorating, plus it keeps me
accountable and makes sure that I’m keeping abreast of the latest developments
in my field.
