Introduction to the role of session musicians
“A freelance musician hired to play on recording sessions” is how the role is defined, however it also encompasses live performance. The impact of session musicians has been a vital part over the course of musical history, birthing new ideas in the creative process, whilst giving way to infamous songs.
It is a meticulous role requiring great talent, whilst working out of the public eye. Phil Collins stated, “I bought records from people I liked, and the people behind. You’d follow certain people.” highlighting the quiet role of these artists on popular records.
Musicians like “Wrecking Crew” collaborated silently on hundreds of songs and albums, including “Pet Sounds” and even with “Frank Sinatra”. Undoubtedly, session musicians have aided the craft of our favourite songs in the shadows.
Requirements to be a Session Musician
Session musicians are known to be masters of their craft, obviously, anybody who knows how to play an instrument whether intermediate or virtuoso can be paid to play on recording sessions or live. However, the likes of Chet Atkins or Hal Blaine have become examples of the rewards of mastering the music they’re put behind, allowing them to build a portfolio.
There is no need for a qualification, only a feel for the music presented to you, and an understanding of how to build on it. However, a large part of recording with others may involve sight reading or playing and learning a piece of music you’ve not heard before efficiently. According to (Musicians Union, 2012), 40% of professional musicians have a degree in music. This gives a formal education in music a helping hand to many session players, due to its guidance through music theory and reading or playing music.
What is important to becoming a successful session musician is networking, going out to seek new opportunities for growth and playing with many artists. It is much easier to do this than ever before due to people being able to promote themselves online, building a social media presence to reach audiences and allow contractors or bands to see your work. playing with others allows you to adapt to the music and humble yourself amongst a group to make art that is the sum of its parts. Working with others requires a level of professional courtesy to ensure the creative process happens smoothly. The larger your network, the stronger your portfolio will be, allowing work to eventually start finding you.
My personal philosophy of music is to play whatever excites me, any genre or any style. Listening to a vast range of genres and playing a variety of styles on guitar help me keep a broad perspective of what I’m capable of when it comes to working with other musicians. Keeping an open mind to whatever music find me helps me constantly improve my playing and adaptability. Others may prefer to lean onto one particular style, or to have a more rigorous training routine. However, I find that focusing primarily on technique through finger exercises on a fret board can’t help me encapsulate musical feel the same way that experimenting guitar work with songs I’m unfamiliar with, which forces me to adapt to add to the music in front of me.
Duties of work
A day in the life of a session musician can vary depending on the workload you take on due to its aspect of self employ-ability. Being in a studio setting means you have agreed to attend and record with the artist at a certain date, often bound by a contract scheduling the time, place and payment. When in the studio, you’ll be expected to quickly adapt and play a part written for you, or have more creative freedom for the track and create arrangements with your instrument. From personal experience, it is always more fulfilling to have less limitations on your creative freedom when doing a session, however, it takes lots of work to comfortably write parts efficiently on the spot.
This is where practise comes into play, where you’ll have to spend a large chunk of your free time with your instrument refining your skills and knowledge of music. Personally, my practise sessions range anywhere from one to six hours a day, depending on how busy I am. I always practise the basics, like triads and the CAGED system, before more practise splitting both my rhythm and lead playing.
Financial and legal factors, professional paths
A large part of marketing yourself has become increasingly more online-based in recent times, through the use of social media and digital streaming platforms. This has led to a decrease in average wages for musicians as streaming platforms like Spotify pay only $0.003 – $0.005 on average per stream (DittoMusic, 2025), which makes revenue from digital media fairly unreliable. Most of a session musicians income will come from recording or performing with artists, rates of pay according to BPI sessions is £180 for a standard 3 hour session (Musicians Union, 2025).
The pay is completely variable due to the freelancing aspect of the career, which gives a sense of instability for musicians to gain a foothold in the industry, especially when the average salary for musicians is £20,700, whilst 43% earn less than £14,000 yearly. (Musicians Union, 2023). Whilst this can be improved by sourcing revenue outside of music, it often can interrupt the creative process for most artists to dedicate time to projects for monetary reasons rather than a genuine passion or inspiration.
It is highly recommended to always have written confirmation for any work done on projects, specifically through the form of a session recording contract. The contract should outline the date, time and place of recording, and the payment for the artist. It is not uncommon for artists to be misled by contracts or management. In fact, it’s a story you hear all too often even in the biggest artists like Little Richard, who reportedly only made only “half a cent for each record sold”, (Porterfield, C. 2020). This is why it’s important as an artist to avoid work that isn’t contracted, and to be scrupulous toward any contract given to you. Ideally, sticking to Musicians Union standard contracts to ensure you’re adequately paid for your work.
Marketing and Promotion
The world we live in today, for better or worse, requires musicians to have a strong online presence. This means having clips of yourself playing a variety of styles, genres and showcasing your talent. This increases your chances of becoming recognised and hired for your work as the portfolio you build increases your image and reputation, improving employ-ability. Furthermore, I’ve found networking to be much easier with the use of social media due to your ability to communicate with anybody you’d like to. As a result, this makes finding session work much easier.
Using social media may be good for exposure and getting new talent out into the music scene, hopefully resulting in employment. However, it also adds a strain to the artist as they must manage an online image and compete to become noticed in a busy, saturated market where it’s hard to stick out. Compared to a time before social media, where most people built a local reputation like small fish in a big pond, today we see artists being little fish in an ocean of talent due to the trend of digital marketing.
Personal or intellectual challenges you may face
Being a musician means competing in a time where everyone can easily promote themselves online, thus making it harder to stand out amongst the crowd. I’ve found this can place a lot of pressure on the musician to improve at a rate that often seems ‘impossible’ to sustain. Sometimes I find I’ll hit a wall with where my playing gets me, whether it be technical ability or writing new material.
I’ve found that maintaining positive relationships can be a struggle when trying to be professional during session work, where artists often don’t have a clear vision for the work they’re doing. This makes my job to play for them harder because it adds the stress of taking a larger part of the writing process that you may not have expected. Furthermore, tensions between people can rise as I try to follow a unclear plan for a song or project, where the vision is not cleat enough to put down any solid foundations, often leading to passive aggressive disagreements or even just an unfriendly tension within the room.
Ultimately, a build up of negative experiences like this lead to a burnout, which seems to be a yearly event for me. However, this is not uncommon for musicians to face, with data suggesting 66% of artists had suffered burnout once (PirateStaff, 2021).
Another challenge I face is income to support my music career, which requires me having to work part time whilst being a student who records and gigs regularly. According to (Musicians Union, 2023), 53% of musicians sustain their career by sourcing income outside of music. This has led me to limit my creative avenues due to times of financial pressure.
Interview with session musician
To get a different angle on the topics discussed previously, I interviewed Alfie Reeves about his personal experiences doing session work for various artists.
Q: What are some personal challenges you’ve faced being a session musician?
A: Personal challenges I’ve faced mainly include money, and interpersonal working relationships. For example, negotiating payment after not getting paid for gigs, or interpersonal relationships with people that are tough to work with.
Q: Do you enjoy your role as a session musician?
A: I do enjoy my role as a session musician. I like the freedom of being able to work with many different people.
Q: Do you think you’ve uncovered any unexpected avenues or experiences during session work?
A: Yes session work has allowed me to progress as a musician and given me amazing opportunities and a network.
Q: What do you think it takes to be a session musician?
A: It takes good people skills and knowledge to be a session player, it’s taken me lots of dedication to get to the level I am at right now.
Q: What is your musical process for session work?
A: It depends job to job, but taking time to learn the songs and practising sets is my main musical process.
Q: Does session work clash with your own creative expression?
A: Session work can clash with my creativity, but that’s just the way it goes. Sometimes you have creative input, sometimes not, but that’s the joy of it.
Q: Do you have a specific work ethic or attitude when working with other musicians?
A: My work ethic is that if i don’t get it perfect, it’s not good at all. You have to do your absolute best to play for an artist, and make sure you can be hired again. Reputation is everything.
Q: What is your process for networking and establishing yourself in music?
A: My process involves having a good Instagram presence, and talking to lots of different musicians in a variety of settings.
Conclusion
Throughout my research, I’ve provided some commentary outlining the barriers to entry being a session musician, such as mastering your craft, contracts and financial pressure on the musician. It is also important to acknowledge the importance of well practised caution when approached by musicians and to understand the standard BPI pay rates, and to carefully navigate contractual agreements.
Earning a living wage in this profession is largely dependant on how much work you’re prepared to find due to its freelancing aspect, so it’s important to network and keep your skills refined through practise. Knowing this, it’s important I continue to practise regularly and expanding my network of musicians to maximise my chances of work. Hopefully, by doing this process i can slowly build a reputation where I’m a reliable and creative asset.
References
Musicians Union, (2012) The Working Musician
DITTO Music, (2025) How Much Does Spotify Pay Per Stream in 2025
https://dittomusic.com/en/blog/how-much-does-spotify-pay-per-stream
Musicians Union, (2025) TV, Film, Radio Rates & Agreements for Session Musicians
Musicians Union, (2023) First Ever UK Musicians’ Census Provides Unparalleled Insight into the Careers of the UK’s Musicians and Music Creators
Porterfield, C. (2020) How Little Richard Was Exploited By A Bad Record Deal And Never Fully Cashed In. Forbes
PirateStaff, (2021) Why 66% Of Artists Have Burned Out At Least Once. Pirate
https://pirate.com/en/blog/news/sixty-six-percent-of-artists-have-experienced-burnout
