RESEARCH PORTFOLIO
I will be authoring this essay on Professional Background Singing, as it is a career path I believe I will go down if I am not a Professional Lead Singer. A background singer is a professional vocalist who is hired to perform supporting vocals in a live performance and studio recordings. It is the job of a background singer to deliver their vocal performance as close to the producer’s or composer’s vision as possible.
From my research, qualifications in this profession are not necessarily required. A lot of creative roles in the music industry do require degrees to get started, but background singing does not,even though a degree is said to be helpful. Music Gateway state (2024) stated in an article about the different aspects of being a background singer: project managers won’t ask for your degree certificate, but studying at University is a great experience, then emphasising that qualification is your ability for this profession. So having professional vocal training is a needed step. It is a training that will level up technique, strength, control, and many other vocal skills. Having some form of training on a portfolio will make it stand out amongst others, increase the chances of being employed and determine how successful a career becomes. Successful background singers have experience in the job to reach a prominent level. Aside from gaining mastery of your own voice by being vocally trained, you need to know areas such as studio recording, live performance, microphone technique, and group/ gang vocals. This is knowledge that can be learned by experience in doing and working alongside separate roles in the industry, such as composers, producers, sound engineers, fellow backing vocalists, and artists.
When it comes to skills needed to be successful as a background singer, it is vital to have an impressive control over your voice as it is required to hold straight, pitched notes and move fluently with other vocalists. As well as this, some music theory knowledge is especially useful as it helps with the must-have ability to pick up and perform harmonies quickly and easily. Often, it is also required to be able to sight-read music, which is a less common skill among pop vocalists. An important personal quality is to be a team player; this is common knowledge, as you need to work in tandem with fellow background singers to deliver the desired sound wanted by the producer or composer. Also, being aware that you are not the forefront of the performance; in situations working behind an artist, you are not there to steal the spotlight and must serve the sound you are meant to. Deke Sharon (2016) explained similarly, in a summary of their book on vocal harmony,that it was about focusing on honest unified expression and the process of delivering an emotionally compelling performance. Working with different artists and different musical jobs in this profession requires the skill to adapt vocally between a variety of genres, as well as having the ability to have a good relationship with different personalities because of the different people you will work with.
If it is freelance work, background singers would choose which gigs they want to pick up and work at local studios, meaning the day-to-day would revolve around staying local and picking up odd jobs. However, if it is session work, it will involve different schedules, as most sessions, performances and tours are scheduled far more in advance. As well, background singers who accompany artists on tours can be away from home for weeks or months at a time, up to a year or so! When it comes to more specific day-to-day responsibilities, revolving a lot of your lifestyle around vocal health is important. This would include hydrating by using steam or nebulisers as well as drinking lots of water, stretching your body in activities such as Pilates and Yoga, and doing vocal warmups daily to maintain vocal stamina and quality. Along with this, practice and preparation would be important as I mentioned earlier in my writing, working on different projects with different people will require learning vocal lines, harmonies and studying given sheet music if needed. With all these duties to uphold every day, it can become a lot, which is why it is important that downtime is included with all of this. Vocalists perform to their best ability when their voice is taken care of, but most importantly, rested. “Vocal fatigue affects effort, pitch range, dynamic range, agility, timbre, etc. Neglecting to rest your voice means you will sound worse while having to work harder for everything.” (Brett Manning, 2022).
As a background singer, it can be common to work as an independent musician, which can invite a lot of financial and legal struggles, including getting enough jobs to earn money, royalties, and a lack of legal support. When it comes to lack of legal support, if you aren’t part of the Musicians’ Union as an independent working musician, you will be missing out on legal support, as they offer help with unpaid fees and free contract advice, and other things, via specialist solicitors and regional offices. If you do not have this, it will become a big struggle if you hit a hurdle and need to pay for legal advice, which will cost more of your finances unnecessarily. In terms of making enough money to cover living costs, this can be difficult if you work freelance specifically, “According to a study by Help Musicians, one-fifth of musicians have considered a career change because they’re unable to make ends meet financially through music” (Lennon Chack, 2021). When it comes to royalties as a backing vocalist, if you have stated you want to in agreement to perform on a recording, it should be labelled that you have performed on that track in the performance royalties, and you should receive your pay for that also if agreed and contracted. Royalties all depend on the specific situation you are in and the conditions, as highlighted by Vampr.me and Far Out Magazine in their articles on royalties to musicians.
As a background vocalist, it is important to market yourself to enhance your chances of being hired for various kinds of work. I believe the best way of doing this is an EPK (Electronic Press Kit), also described as a professional portfolio. This would be extremely useful for all areas of session work as it is a creative way to show your experience, videos, and photos of you performing, as well as reviews from listeners or past employers. It gives people an idea of what kind of person you are to work with and around, as well as hearing your abilities, before considering you for jobs. Through my research, I found a young female background singer, Amber Kuti, whom I had the pleasure of doing a workshop with in 2024; her EPK is a perfect example. It includes a front cover photo with a personalised logo and a large bibliography, with pages titled watch, listen, about, book and contact details. Along with this, social media posting of your work and performances can be helpful, so employers can see that you are serious about your work and engage with it on all platforms. When it comes to promoting yourself offline, working and collaborating with other people is the best thing; this builds connections with people and more contacts for further potential work and opportunities. Promoting yourself as a background singer differs from a lead singer or artist, as you are not so much building a brand, but showing your abilities, such as your technical skills, adaptability, and enhancement of other people’s music.
Being a background singer, there are a few intellectual and personal challenges that come along with the job, such as an obvious, prominent level of competition for getting work. Competitiveness is a part of nearly any job in the Music Industry, “singing is highly competitive breaking through to reach a wider audience requires not only exceptional talent but also perseverance” (Dr. Preeti Singh, 2023), when it comes to getting jobs, it’s unlikely to get all of the ones you go for and a lot of the time can mean you experience setbacks and frustration. The mental struggle of this can be difficult, and the competition can seem very intimidating. To deal with this, it is important to build confidence and remember that not getting hired for jobs does not mean you cannot do the job, just that there are a lot of options for employers to choose from, and not every job is right for you. It is vital to know your strengths and be comfortable with your voice and confident enough, as well as determined to keep trying. The second challenge I just need to focus on is the financial instability that can come along with working just on this career path. Because it is not your classic 9-to-5, or structured job with a steady income weekly or monthly, this means payment for work is very staggered, and what you earn can depend on a short amount of time being busy with jobs and then times with no work. “If you don’t know when your next recording session will be, then how do you know you’ll have money for rent on the first of the month?” (Kai, 2018) As stated in this book, this can cause anxiety around affording the cost of living, which is extremely challenging. Dr Preeti Singh (2023) discussed in their article that the lack of a stable income source can impede singers’ ability to focus solely on honing their craft. As spoken in this article, it can also affect the ability to work to one’s best, which then lessens jobopportunities. To combat this, an innovative idea would be to ensure that you are working another job or a few other jobs that give a steadier income, until you reach a higher level of earnings as a background singer, so that you do not fall into financial instability. Two final challenges that would be present are the task of trying to blend, being a vocalist is an intense study on your own voice, which can give an illusion that the sound of your voice will be forefront, learning to blend and be in the background of somebody else’s voice is something that can be tricky to learn and hard to settle into. To deal with this, it would require getting as much experience in the profession as possible to become comfortable with the environment of what the job is, such as being a part of a choir, taking any opportunity to do any backing singing for fellow musicians you know. Also, illness, this would go for any vocalist in the field of performance. It is a challenge that vocalists constantly face because of how easy it is to catch illnesses, which can lead to a sore throat. To combat this, as I mentioned previously, vocal health is especially important; you should be looking after your voice on a day-to-day basis to prevent illnesses from affecting your ability to perform. Doing things such as nebulising, staying hydrated, warming up, and having downtime.
The career progression and development opportunities that are available in this profession are endless. A lead singer/artist is one of them. This would be a progression opportunity because if you are working as a background vocalist, working with lots of different people and meeting new people will be regular, which means making contacts. Making contacts in the industry can get you seen and heard, which can enhance your chances of being at the forefront of something. A session singer is also a highly likely progression, as being a background singer is similar in a lot of ways, in terms of making the sound a producer or composer wants, learning lots of different vocal parts and being reliable to hire and show up to work. There are similar acquired skills in both background singing and session singing, meaning that through the right connections, it would be a quick step to progress. Lastly, being a vocal coach/singing teacher would be a distinguished career development opportunity. This is because having the technical knowledge needed to be a background singer, it is likely to be qualified to teach it to others. “Those interested in sharing their hard-won technical knowledge and experience could become vocal coaches” (Berklee.au).
BIBLIOGAPHY
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Anon, (2025) Vampr.me. Available online: https://www.vampr.me/faq/do-background-musicians-receive-royalties/. [Accessed 23/12/25].
Apple Music (2025) Why an Electronic Press Kit matters – Apple Music for Artists. artists.apple.com. Available online: https://artists.apple.com/support/1121-why-an-electronic-press-kit-matters. [Accessed 22/12/25].
BAST Training (2025) Ep.197 Backing Adele and beyond: the art and craft of backing vocals with Katie Holmes Smith. BAST Training. Available online: https://www.basttraining.com/blog/backing-adele-and-beyond-the-art-and-craft-of-backing-vocals-with-katie-holmes-smith/ [Accessed 22/12/25].
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Deke Sharon (2016) The Heart of Vocal Harmony: Emotional Expression in Group Singing. Hal Leonard.
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