What I Need From a Session Musician
By Written by Peter McVeigh
The view from the other side of the room. What I look for when hiring session musicians, and what separates the players I call every time from the ones I never call again.
It's Not About Being the Best Player in the Room
I've hired a lot of session musicians over the years. Guitar players, drummers, bass players, pianists, string players. Some sessions have been genuinely magical, some have been painful, and a few have been expensive lessons I'd rather not repeat. This is what I've learned from all of them, written from the perspective of the person doing the hiring.
The first thing I look for when I'm hiring isn't necessarily the most technically gifted player. I'm looking for someone who knows how to listen. That sounds simple but it's rarer than you'd think.
When you walk into a session, your job is to serve the song. Not to show off, not to demonstrate how many years you've been playing, not to fill every gap with something impressive. Your job is to make the music better than it was before you arrived. Sometimes that means playing less than you're capable of. Often, actually.
The musicians I hire again and again are the ones who understand their role within the band and stay in it. You might be an incredible guitarist who's been playing for twenty years. Great. Use that experience to know when to hold back. The best players I've worked with are the ones I didn't have to ask twice to simplify a part. They heard it, they felt it, and they knew.
Feel the Dynamic
There is one thing that separates a decent player from someone I'll call every time I have a project. It's the ability to feel the dynamic of the music and play to it.
Knowing when something is building. Knowing when to come in hard and when to pull back to almost nothing. Understanding that silence is part of the performance too. Some of the most powerful moments on records I've made have been where a musician just stopped playing for a bar or two and let the song breathe.
You can read score perfectly, you can play from chord charts, you can learn by ear. All of those are valid. But none of them matter if you can't feel where the music is going. That's the thing you can't teach and the thing I need most.
If a song is swelling into a chorus, everything should reflect that, including you. If a verse is stripped back and fragile, play delicately. Match the emotional tone of what's happening around you. That instinct is worth more than any qualification.
Communication Is Everything, Especially on the Road
Before rehearsals, before the session, before the tour. If there's a problem, tell me early.
If the music is too difficult for you to play comfortably, say so before you walk through the door. Not after we've booked three days of studio time and everyone is assembled. I'll respect you far more for being honest upfront than for getting halfway through a session and falling apart.
If you can't make a date on the road, if something has come up, if you're injured, whatever it is, communicate it as early as possible. Your reputation is built over years and damaged in moments. Letting someone down last minute is one of those moments. I've seen careers quietly stall because word got around that someone wasn't reliable. The music industry is small. People talk.
I've had someone turn up to a session not knowing the part. They told me it was impossible to play and that it had been scored terribly. Another musician in the room picked up the same part, played it on the first go, and swapped a few things out that made it even better. The person who complained never worked with me again. Not out of spite. Just out of practicality. I can't afford to have someone in a room who hasn't done the work.
If you're a sight reader, that's a skill. But know the limits of what you can sight read in real time under pressure. If a jump is going to give you trouble, practice it before you arrive or be honest that you'll need time on it.
Be Ready Before It Starts
Studio time is expensive. Hiring musicians is expensive. The clock starts the moment we're supposed to begin, not when you've finished setting up.
If you have a lot of equipment, that's fine. But know it inside out and be set up before the session starts. Arrive early enough to sort your rig, test your levels, and be sitting there ready to play when everyone else walks in. The musician who is always ready to go is the one I want on every project. It signals professionalism and it signals respect for everyone else's time.
I've been in sessions where a debate over whether to record through pedals or plugins lasted over an hour. The engineer, to be fair to him, didn't charge me for it. But it killed the energy in the room and it was completely avoidable. Record both and decide in the mix. Keep moving.
Know Your Rate and Say It Out Loud
This is practical advice but it matters more than people realise. Know what you charge before anyone asks.
When I reach out to someone and ask their rate, and they say they'll have to go away and think about it, it creates a strange awkward energy. It makes me wonder if they're going to price themselves based on how much they think I might have. It introduces uncertainty into what should be a simple conversation.
Set rates make everything easier. They make you look professional, they make me feel secure in the budget, and they make longer term planning much more manageable. Look at what others in your area and at your level are charging, be honest about where you sit, and set a number you're genuinely happy with.
That said, take the long view sometimes. If an artist you'd love to work with has a tighter budget for a session, consider it an investment rather than a discount. A few days of session work can turn into months of touring. A touring relationship can turn into records. Records can turn into years of work together. Knocking a bit off one session to open that door is often worth it. Just don't make a habit of undervaluing yourself chronically. There's a difference between strategic flexibility and being taken advantage of.
Recording Ability Is a Serious Advantage
If you can record at home and send over rough ideas, you'll work more than musicians who can't. I'm far more likely to build a working relationship with someone who can send me a voice note or a rough track of something they're hearing on one of my songs. It shows creative investment. It shows you've been thinking about the music outside of the session room.
It doesn't need to be polished. I don't need a finished production. I need to hear your ideas so we can arrive in the studio already knowing what we're trying. That saves time and money and often leads to better results because we're not figuring it out from scratch in an expensive room.
Learn the Songs. Not Just the Chords.
Learn what the song is actually about. Read the lyrics. Understand the story. When you know what a singer is trying to say, you make better musical decisions. You know where the emotional peak is. You know which lines need space and which need to be supported. You play differently when you understand the narrative.
It also makes communication in the room much easier. If I say come in just after the line where she sings "take me as I am," you'll know exactly where I mean. If you just know the chord chart, you're lost.
Listen to references the artist gives you. Listen to records they're influenced by. Try to understand the world they're trying to create. Then help them build it.
Bringing Ideas Without Taking Over
I tend to write a lot of the parts myself before a session. But I hire session musicians because they're better than me on that instrument. So there's an implicit invitation in hiring you to bring something I couldn't have thought of.
Feel free to suggest ideas. If you hear a part that might serve the song better, play it through in a verse or a chorus and let people hear it. Don't announce it like a proposal, just play it and see if it lands. Most of the time a great player hearing the music for the first time will spot something the writer has been too close to the song to notice.
What I'd ask is that you don't try to change every part you're given. Not every suggestion is going to fit. Take the feedback gracefully and move on. And never arrive in a session expecting to redesign what someone has been building for months. You're there to enhance, not overwrite.
On Drums: Less Is Almost Always More
I've worked with a lot of great drummers. The sessions that have produced the best results have followed a pretty consistent pattern.
Start with the most basic version of the part. Lock that down. Once you have a clean basic take everyone is happy with, then you start experimenting with fills, rolls, and variations. Then I'll ask the drummer to show me how they'd approach it differently to my original idea. Nine times out of ten, the first basic take is what ends up on the record. All the extra stuff informed it and shaped it, but the simplicity was right all along.
The temptation for a skilled drummer is to show range. But the best drummers I've worked with know that a simple part played with conviction will beat an elaborate one played with uncertainty every single time. Give the song a backbone. Then we can talk about the decoration.
In the Studio, Think About the Whole Take
When we're recording, I love working on live takes where possible. I think it adds a feeling to an album that you simply can't replicate when everything is dropped in piece by piece.
We'll drop in to fix things occasionally. But mostly we'll do three or four takes of each instrument and then comp out any mistakes to create one strong take that still has the feeling of a live performance. That process only works if everyone in the room knows the song inside out. If you're still working out the part while we're recording, you're not giving me what I need.
Know the song before you arrive. Know it well enough that you could play it half asleep. Then in the session you can focus on the performance rather than on remembering the structure.
The Thing I Need Most
Everything above is useful. But what I really need from you is something simpler.
I need you to understand how much this means to the artist you're working with. Making a record, writing songs, putting something out into the world, it takes an enormous amount of courage and time and emotional energy. When you walk into that session you're being trusted with something the artist has poured a significant part of themselves into.
Be patient. Try hard. Be genuinely encouraging when something sounds good. Be engaged even when you're recording the same section for the fifth time. Be the kind of person who makes the experience feel worthwhile, because the best sessions I've ever been in had that quality in every person in the room.
The music always sounds better when the people making it are actually enjoying themselves. That's not a soft thing to say. It's the truth. Play like you mean it, treat the songs like they matter, and look after the person who trusted you enough to hire you.
Do that consistently and you'll never be short of work.