Research Portfolio: Session Guitarist.

Introduction:

Fundamentally, a session musician is “…anyone who plays a musical instrument or vocalist in a live or recording gig or session that is not a featured artist” (Musicians’ Union, 2025). In a sense, they are the hired guns of the music industry, often self-employed and jumping from project to project. Due to the unpredictable nature of employment in the music industry, working as a session guitarist requires constantly pushing yourself to explore different hard and soft skills across a plethora of different work environments.

In this research portfolio I plan to explore how best to navigate this space as an aspiring session guitarist, develop my understanding of professional practice in the industry, as well as exploring the personal skills and qualifications required to succeed in this career.

The Session Musician.

Personal Attributes:

Due to the collaborative nature of the role a large aspect of what makes a successful session guitarist is their interpersonal skills. A significant portion of work as a session guitarist comes through word of mouth and building up a reputation within the industry. Therefore, being reliable, respectful, a confident communicator, hardworking and open minded are some of the core attributes needed to succeed.

Qualifications & Experience:

For session guitarists the greatest benefit to their employability is simply gaining experience in a variety of different musical settings and styles as well as working with a variety of different personalities. If you can adapt on the fly, and most importantly understand your role sonically within a project, you are primed to succeed.

Whilst there are no specific qualifications required to be a session guitarist a high degree of technical competency is expected, and achieving this is potentially made easier through formal music education. Furthermore, links to educational establishments could help provide professional opportunities to young musicians that they may not have had access to otherwise. For example, Mateus Asato, whilst studying at Musicians Institute: College of Contemporary Music (MI), landed his breakout gig with Tori Kelly. The Director of Music for Tori Kelly had reached out to MI looking for students to audition for a Capitol Records artist, Asato was one of four students put forward. Asato, recalling the audition, in a piece written by MI, states “Kelly’s people were really picky and wanted him to prove his creativity” (Musicians Institute, 2018); getting him to improvise potential guitar parts based off specific scenarios they gave him. This audition highlights the required versatility, creativity and technical competence of a session guitarist, whilst also being an opportunity which may not have arisen if he did not study music formally (Musicians Institute, 2018).  

Intellectual & Personal challenges:

Whilst there are numerous personal challenges related to being a self-employed individual, I will highlight those later when breaking down developing a portfolio career. Instead, here I will discuss the personal challenges relating to creative expression, keeping “work” fun and mental health around touring.

In an interview with Sam Beattle for Andertons Blog, session guitarist Kai Smith provides great insight into how he believes you can find value and enjoyment in session gigs as well as ways to combat stress and the need to express your own creativity. He believes that as a session guitarist you must find joy in perfecting a set on repeat and a sense of fulfilment from being part of a project larger than yourself.  He also highlights that whilst touring for prolonged periods of time, in a potentially high stress environment, it is important to maintain your physical and mental well-being; through a balanced diet, exercise and practicing mindfulness. Along with building a healthy routine on tour, he also stresses the value of having a project for yourself where you set no creative boundaries and just allow yourself to spew ideas with no judgement. Smith claims that in doing so you allow yourself to commit fully to your professional work whilst also still having an outlet to express your own creativity (Beattle, 2019).

A day in the life of.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Put simply it is the session guitarists duty to quickly learn, masterfully perform and adjust to the musical material given to them to fulfil the needs of their employer. Along with this naturally comes a responsibility to always be punctual, prepared, reliable and easy to work with, as no matter your technical ability if you are not consistently reliable and respectful you simply won’t be the person people want to have on their projects.

There are certain hard skills as a session guitarist that are essential to learn to maximise work opportunities as well as helping you be better prepared in a variety of different work environments. These skills include, but are not limited to:

• Having a solid understanding of music theory; this opens up a common language to communicate musical ideas through.
• Having a comprehensive knowledge of the fretboard (scales, modes, chord inversions etc). As it is the practical application of music theory and provides a solid base that makes adapting to different styles more comfortable.
• Being able to confidently read off chord charts. As a session guitarist it is not rare to be handed a chart on the day and be expected to perform it on the spot.
• Being able to confidently read sheet music. Once again, it is not uncommon to be handed sheet music on the day of a session and be expected to perform it; it also opens up other opportunities such as pit band and orchestral work.
• Understanding the role and stylistic nuances of guitar in different genres. This allows you to seamlessly fit into the conventions of the given style the project is aiming for, making yours and the employer’s life much easier.

Developing a Portfolio Career.

A portfolio career is “…having a series of jobs, each for a short time, rather than one job for a long time” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2025).  Due to the nature of the role, your work as a session guitarist will always vary, from tracking guitars in a single day to touring in a pit band, no two jobs look alike. This unpredictability creates a unique challenge in structuring your work-life as a self-employed musician. In this section, I plan to breakdown the pros and cons of developing a portfolio career as well as looking into different financial and legal challenges in this field.

Some of the Pros and cons of a Portfolio Career are outlined in table 1.

Pros	Cons
Flexibility	Juggling work, business management and personal life
Diversity of work	Lack of stability
Independence	No sick pay, paid annual leave or other employment rights
Exploring multiple interests	No workplace pension
Sense of direction	Managing your own taxes

TABLE 1: The pro’s and Con’s of a portfolio Career.

Working as a self-employed individual in the music industry is a unique challenge but due to the lack of permanent work in the music industry it is often a necessary one. There are clear benefits to this career path such as the unique flexibility of being your own boss and managing the structure of your work-life around your unique skillset and passions. However, with this comes the challenges of managing the legal and financial struggles of both the business and the employee without the infrastructure around you to assist. Because of this it is essential that as a session guitarist you have a good working knowledge of the different contracts you may encounter, given the varied nature of the work. Additionally, it is crucial that you, as a self-employed individual, are money savvy, investing in not only your craft but also your future self.

Pensions:

One of the downsides of working as a self-employed musician is the lack of a workplace pension scheme. Statistics, reported by the Musicians’ Union in The Working Musician Report (2012) showed that 65% of musicians do not regularly pay into a pension scheme.  Given that, a current 18-year-old, won’t reach state pension age until 68 (Department for Work and Pensions, 2025), and the average life expectancy for men is 86 years old, that would leave you with at least twenty years without a pension income (Office of National Statistics, 2025). This highlights the importance of planning for retirement from the start of your career.

Career Development.

Career progression and development opportunities:

Development as a Session Guitarist is all about who you know, networking and building connections with artists, producers and other session players. Being a known quantity and someone who is pleasant to work with will land you solid work across all levels. Therefore, it is crucial, especially in the early years of your career, to try and say yes to as many different opportunities as possible. As gaining that experience not only improves ones playing ability but also connects you to a wide range of industry professionals.

Session guitarist, Dominic Miller, is a pertinent example of how your career can snowball from free sessions to touring the world just by putting yourself in the right places, with the right people, and a little bit of luck. In 1989, he agreed to take part in a free session which was heard by producer Hugh Padgham. After hearing Miller’s playing Padgham frequently came to Miller with session opportunities leading to them building a strong working relationship. Padgham, having produced several of The Police’s albums, recommended Miller when Sting came to him looking for a session guitarist. Miller even now 30 years later is still Sting’s go to guy. This highlights the interdependence between session players, producers and artists (Small, 2010).

Marketing & Promotion:

In a time dominated by social media, it is highly important that you spend time crafting a strong presence and following online. It is common for session guitarists to post themselves playing and practicing a variety of different styles, thus showcasing their versatility. They often showcase their work through footage from the studio, moments from live performances and behind the scenes filming. This can help them not only portray their abilities but also showcase the plethora of people they’ve worked with. Good examples include Justus West (who has worked with the likes of Mac Miller and Ty Dolla $ign) and Russ G (who has worked with the likes of Wiz Khalifa and Sam Greenfield) (Justus West, 2025) (Russ G, 2025).  

Expanding on the concept that work often comes through word of mouth, stated earlier. Over the past ten to fifteen years, with social medias rise to prominence, there has been a shift towards placing as much importance on your online presence as your connections in person. Looking at the Dominic Miller example, back in 1989 he needed to be in the same place at the same time as Hugh Padhgam for his playing to be exposed to the right people, whereas today any industry professional always has access to the work you share. This, in theory, makes it easier for guitarists to get discovered by labels, producers and artists. However, due to the ease of uploading content to social media, it in turn, has increased competition in this field, simply due to the sheer number of quality musicians uploading to the same platforms. This highlights the importance of showcasing your unique skillset and prior work.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the knowledge I have a gained throughout the process of creating this research portfolio has greatly helped develop my understanding of, not only professional practice and personal skills, but also the common pitfalls that may hinder professionals in this field and how to avoid them. I plan to take the knowledge I have learnt forwards into my own industry endeavours, for example starting a pension fund early, crafting an intentional social media presence and further developing my technical ability on the guitar. In an ever-unpredictable industry, I believe that this research portfolio provides valuable insight into what is necessary to not only succeed, but to do so in an organised, healthy and professional manner.

References:

Beattle, S. 2019. Session Series: Interview with Kai Smith (Dua Lipa, Zara Larrson, Example). [Online]. [Accessed 12 December 2025]. Available from: Session Series: Interview with Kai Smith (Dua Lipa, Zara Larsson, Example) – Andertons Blog

Department for Work and Pensions. 2025. Check your State Pension Age. [Online]. [Accessed 10 December 2025]. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/state-pension-age

G, Russ. 2025. russg100. [Instagram]. [Accessed 28 December 2025]. Available from: https://www.instagram.com/russg100/?hl=en

Office for National Statistics. 2025. Life Expectancy Calculator. [Online]. [Accessed 10 December 2025]. Available from: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/articles/lifeexpectancycalculator/2019-06-07

Musicians Institute. 2018. Mateus Asato the Early Years. [Online]. [Accessed 21 December 2025]. Available from: https://www.mi.edu/profiles/mateus-asato-the-early-years/

Small, M. 2010.  Thoughts from a Globetrotting Sideman. [Online]. [Accessed 17 December 2025]. Available from: Thoughts from a Globetrotting Sideman | Berklee

‘Portfolio Career.’ Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. 2025. [Online]. [Accessed 14 December]. Available from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/portfolio-career?q=portfolio-career.

Musicians’ Union. 2012.  The Working Musician. [Online]. [Accessed 10 December 2025]. Available from: The-Working-Musician-report.pdf

W, Justus. 2025. justus.west. [Instagram]. [Accessed 28 December 2025]. Available from: https://www.instagram.com/justus.west/

Musicians’ Union. 2025. Working as a Recording Session Musician. [Online]. [Accessed 10 December 2025]. Available from: https://musiciansunion.org.uk/working-performing/recording-and-broadcasting/working-as-a-recording-session-musician