I was lucky enough to get paid to play a recording session yesterday at a local studio here in France, for visiting American songwriter and producer Dana Walden.

If anyone would like to know more — how I got the work, how I prepared, what gear I took, how it actually went — please ask and I’ll do my best to answer. Needless to say, it was a fabulous day, and I consider myself very fortunate.

There were two key takeaways I wanted to share:

1. You must be able to play in all keys. I had to play a song in three different keys straight off, to find which suited the singer best. Luckily it was a simple pop song, but the ability to move freely between keys was essential.

2. Ear training pays off. Dana wanted a short guitar intro and asked me to play him some ideas. He liked a couple of things I played. Then he sang a line to me and asked me to play it back. I was so glad I had worked through those ear training exercises.

How it went…

I met Dana the day before. He wanted to meet and talk through the project, and he was really nice, so I didn’t feel nervous. We were only recording one tune that day — just him, the chanteuse, and me.

Knowing the song ahead of time meant I was able to work out some nice chord voicings and pathways, while still leaving plenty of scope to improvise. Dana was clear about what he wanted and told me when he liked something and wanted more of it.

Style-wise, I’d assumed it was going to be jazzy — that’s why the woman who booked me had booked me — but Dana wanted a more pop approach.

On the day, the engineer was set up and ready when I arrived. I sat in the control room and plugged straight into the desk, playing to a drum track with some piano parts the producer had prepared that morning. I played from the notes I’d made the day before, while Dana sang a placeholder vocal and conducted me through the arrangement.

I put down a couple of takes using different ideas. When the singer arrived we had a few more run-throughs, then the producer asked me for a final take — just embellishments and fills. After a couple of hours, my work was done. The rest of the session belonged to the singer.

One small thing I hadn’t anticipated: I’m used to a two-bar count-in, but the studio DAW was set up for just one bar. That caught me out on the first take! Afterwards I found myself thinking about how much studio time that must save over the course of a few months.

Hopefully I’ll get a copy of the finished track when it’s done.

How I got the gig…

I’m not a working professional musician. Being a professional musician in France is complicated — the rules are quite something. On paper, I’m retired.

I got this gig by being in the right place at the right time. I’d done a short gig with Lyda, my Dutch opera singer friend, and the woman who booked me happened to be in the audience. She loved what we did and got in touch — she was looking for a guitarist, she liked what I played, and she showed some of my YouTube videos to the producer. He thought I was worth a try. I was halfway there before the session even began.