Happy sessions: how to elevate your music by working with session musicians
by Ivo Witteveen
"This is the greatest gig in the world", composer David Newman allegedly exclaimed after recording a take of his film music with an orchestra. Although I rarely work with a full orchestra, I know what he meant - hearing skilled musicians play your music can be among the greatest joys you experience as a composer. However, recording sessions can also at times be frustrating and disappointing: think back to that slightly embarrassing session with your drummer-friend where you couldn't get the sound, timing, and performance you were both looking for, or the day you discovered that recording your violin-playing niece, however talented, does not automatically elevate your soundtrack to John Williams / Itzhak Perlman excellency. But: when all goes well, live musicians will deliver an invaluable contribution to your score and take your music to a whole new level. So, how can you make that happen?
Preliminary remark: not all music calls for live musicians. Obviously, there are genres where the electronic and/or programmed nature of the sound is essential to the style. Also, there are contexts where live played instruments might not deliver the best result, for example when expectations have been defined by massive sounding stacked sampled sounds. In this article, we don't concern ourselves with these considerations of musical style and genre. Also, we will not discuss technical and organizational aspects like choosing between remote recording, all together in one session or using overdubs - although all of this does affect the creative result. Putting technology aside, we focus on the human aspects of working with live musicians and assume we're talking about the very wide range of musical styles that benefit from a live, or hybrid, approach.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here are several things you can do as a composer to make the most of your recording sessions:
Be aware of your role(s)
As a media composer, you are likely to be wearing many hats: conceivably you are the composer, arranger, producer, recording engineer and mixing engineer of the track, while at the same time also bearing responsibility for planning & finance of the whole thing. Start with being aware of this - this gives you a clearer overview of what needs to be done. And then decide whether you really need to do all of this yourself. For example, on smaller productions, when working mainly with overdubs, I usually do choose to do all these things myself in my own studio. But as soon as the scope gets a little bit bigger, I like to work with a recording engineer in an external studio so I can focus on the other tasks. For even bigger sessions, a music copyist or conductor might be added. There will be budget and time considerations when adding people to your team, but you do have a choice here - and doing everything yourself is not always the best option.
Prepare
Now that you've decided on your roles, prepare as good as you can and take responsibility for that. Preparing means this: you do in advance everything you can to make the most of the session. If it's you who does the music notation: have it ready before the session. If you are the engineer: your microphones are set up and tested before the musicians come in. Yes, there can be last-minute changes that mess with your preparations, and experienced session players won't be surprised by this - but, with the optimal result in mind, you might sometimes consider to politely push back, explaining to your client that changes this late will lead to a lesser result. Or, if you must change, simply explain to the musicians what needs to be changed, briefly - and get on with it. Prepare, in order to be flexible: your preparations should not be a straitjacket for how the session unfolds. Rather, being prepared means you have a clear starting point and space to adapt when needed.
Hire the right people (and pay them fairly)
There are many excellent instrumentalists out there; also, there are many nice people in this world. You will want to work with the overlapping group: very good musicians that are also a pleasure to work with. There's no reason to hire musicians that don't have both these qualities. Not all media composers are always compensated fairly for their work, but you can rest assured that performing musicians are generally way worse off, financially. So, when you are in the situation that you can hire musicians for your project, don't be cheap. There are established norms for what fair payment is (in The Netherlands, around € 270 for a 2-3 hr. session). For this rate, you get the very best players. Ideally, this shouldn't come from 'your money' but from the production budget, although this cannot always be separated. It can help to clearly explain the costs of session musicians and recording studios in your proposal to your client when presenting your budget. I have also, on multiple occasions, been in a situation where originally there was no budget for session musicians, but as the music developed it became clear that for instance a string quartet would greatly help the sound - and additional budget was made available.
When hiring musicians, go all the way and hire the best people you can find. It's not worth it to hire someone 75% as good for 75% of the money (and since we've just stated that you should always pay fairly, you would probably be paying 100% to someone 75% as good...). Ask around, ask for recommendations, check who has played on your favorite albums and just call them. Also, you might need to fill in some paperwork to arrange the neighboring rights. Take care of that too. When musicians like to work for you, you can build a network of great players around you that will usually respond quickly when you call them and - knowing you are a returning customer - will perhaps also be open to working for a lower fee on occasion, for instance when you are taking on a job on spec or are producing your own work. Having a good, dependable pool of musicians and engineers around you is an asset and might even become part of your sound.
Write with your musicians in mind
This shouldn't aim to turn into an arranging & orchestration book, but - as with many things in life - it helps when you know what you are doing and think ahead. So, if you envision an important role for a solo instrument, perhaps start writing in a key that's convenient for that instrument, instead of a key that is convenient for you. Or if you have a particular singer in mind, check the range of your vocalist and take that into account. When doing a hybrid production, be smart about how you use the live instruments: modest live-played contributions can make a big difference. Things like recording a live hi-hat with programmed kick/snare, adding some live percussion or layering one violin on top of programmed strings can already breathe some welcome life into your tracks. When you work with larger groups like a string section, horn section, or even orchestra: write in a way that brings out the best in the instruments and players (or hire an arranger to do that for you).
For the session musician, it's gratifying to be able to make a significant contribution to your track. On the other hand, if you have unrealistic expectations of how something will sound and could contribute to your track, this might lead to less successful recording sessions. So, choose wisely which instruments you'd like to have played live on your track and then write to make them shine.
Communicate
You are deeply involved in the project and the music - nobody knows more about it than you do. The session musicians however, know nothing about it yet. So, take a step back and don't start talking about every minute detail of the project right away. Instead, think about what you want to achieve in the session and then focus your communication with the musician on achieving that result.
Communication here is not only talking - it lies also in the parts you prepare, the elements of the multitrack you play for them while recording, etcetera. For example, it might be useful to play the full arrangement of the track once, including a guide vocal, to give a clear idea of the song. But when recording, your string section might not want to hear the messy intonation and timing of the guide vocal, but only those elements which give them solid support for timing and tuning. Awareness of communication also means choosing what not to communicate. When you play an arrangement including programmed midi-drums and bass to your session band, the drummer will most likely try to mimic that playing. When you don't play the midi demo, but instead have a chart ready and have your guitarist play the song through once with the vocalist, whole other avenues to approach the song might open for the rhythm section. You might want this, or not - it is up to you whether you feel you can benefit from the fresh perspective on your music the session players can bring. Either way, the output of the players will be influenced by what you decide to play to your musicians before you hit record.
Know what you want (and leave room for some more)
I find it helps to define what you want to get from a session before you plan the session. When you don't know what you want, you can't articulate it and you don't know when a take is good. That does not mean that there is no room for surprise or happy accidents; on the contrary. My idea of a great session is a session where I got what I came for - and then something extra, because everything ran smoothly, people got inspired and we arrived at a situation where we could do a few extra takes and explore additional directions. When the things that need to be recorded have been recorded, the pressure disappears.
If, on the other hand, you don't know what you want to hear and wait for a magic take to happen, if you keep doing takes waiting for something to 'feel good', it can get tiresome for musicians. They might get insecure because of the lack of clear feedback - and you probably will not arrive at a situation where everybody feels the freedom to do a bit more. So, first get what you need, then see what more there is to be achieved.
'Knowing what you want' in this context, usually means 'being able to communicate to the musicians what they should play' - whether you do this with written music, reference tracks, explanation, or a combination of these is up to you. There can be situations where you would like to experiment, or have the musicians improvise. In that case, 'knowing what you want' means: being open and clear about your desire to experiment. You'd want to hire musicians that are comfortable with improvising, perhaps book a longer session, and make it clear up front what you require. In my opinion, the process should always be that you come up with the material, the context, the musical setting - so the musicians interpret your music and improvise on it. In my book it is not OK to have a musician improvise with not much to start with, take a cool phrase from it, then turn it into a tune for a TV-show and claim it as your own work. There are grey areas here and in the spirit of good collaboration, be generous: if their contribution becomes so significant that it becomes more co-creation than interpretation of your work, acknowledge this and offer to share credit.
Be a good host
Although a recording session is not a party, it can help to think of yourself as the host of the recording event. Atmosphere is very important. You might be under heavy stress - try to not let it show. Be on time, have coffee ready, for longer sessions bring some nice food. Go to studios with vintage microphones and up-to-date kitchens. Being a good host is smart, not just because it is nice to enable people to have a good time; it is also smart because musicians will perform best in a friendly environment where they feel welcome and appreciated. Also, don't be afraid to take the lead. Everyone is there because of you - because you asked them to. So be clear what it is you'd like to get done; when to start, when to take a break, etcetera. This also means giving feedback when things do not go as planned, or making difficult decisions like cutting off a discussion and moving on to the next cue knowing the one you're working on isn't perfect yet - because you know you'll run out of time later if you work on it longer.
What can you expect?
After this long list of 'thou-shalts' for the composer/producer, it's only fair to state what you can expect in return. A good session musician will be an incredibly skilled player with experience in recording. Most conservatoires still don't teach the specific skills players need in recording sessions, especially not in the classical departments, so this is something musicians acquire by on-the-job learning - but preferably not by learning on your job... So check for experience in recording situations. Good session players will be nice people to work with, bringing a positive vibe to the session and are always interested in your music whatever their personal musical preference, and will try to make the best of it in all situations. They'll bring a selection of fine instruments relevant to the musical context that all work flawlessly. They'll usually be versatile: able to perform in a broad range of styles. Alternatively, they can be specialists, like the go-to guy for flamenco guitar or the only woman in a 200km-radius who knows how to play a medieval crumhorn. Again, it's up to you to hire the right person for the job. Session musicians bring experience. They may have worked with artists, composers or producers more famous than you - they can probably share stories you can learn from, or anecdotes that make you think: "Hm, compared to that it's actually not so bad what we're doing here...". On a side note: if these stories turn into something that might intimidate you or other players in the session (the "I'm too good for this because I played for such-and-so vibe") that's not OK and could be a reason not to hire the musician again.
For me personally, the 'studio days', being with great musicians in a studio and hearing the music take shape, are the days I love most about my work. And whilst media composers are not responsible for the dire situation that many performing musicians find themselves in nowadays, I do think that media composers as a group can have a role in supporting live recorded music. By using live musicians wherever it's appropriate, whenever we can, we shape what clients and audiences are hearing and perhaps even what they are expecting to hear. Yes, you might get away with using samples and perhaps the client was already happy with what they heard on the demo: but why not go the extra mile if you can, make it as good as it can be, assemble a group of talented people around you and go for it. Guaranteed to be way more rewarding than programming virtual instruments in your attic. Happy recording!
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