Whether you are looking to hire the best session musicians in your area, or you want to become one of them, this article should provide you with some useful information, and it is provided by Kip Allen, outstanding session musician in the Music Capitol of the U.S., Nashville! Call Kip Allen for your next recording session, but only call him if you want the best session drummer your money can hire.
Who are the best session musicians in your area?
This is not a question you can ask one moment and receive an answer the next. It will take some road work to find the answer, and that road work should lead you to music venues in your area where you can talk to established musicians and music producers in your area. The pros in any area know who the trusted session musicians are. They know who can be counted on. They know who is flexible in style and who can “fit” into a particular musical style. Spend some time asking around.
Your other option is to visit music venues yourself and watch a number of local gigs. Stop by music studios. Listen to the musicians in your area in their natural habitat, doing what they do best. Chances are excellent that after a couple weeks of foot-leather research, the same small list of names will keep rising to the top of your list of possibilities.
How do you become one of the best session musicians?
As far as becoming a trusted session player, there is no substitute for experience and practice. There are no shortcuts in becoming one of the best, in any pursuit. Talk to experienced musicians and their stories are eerily similar. They all worked the small venues. They all worked the open-mike scenes. They all worked the street corners, and they all worked for practically nothing as they clawed their way to the top. They did these things because improving their skills was important to them, but also because they couldn’t imagine not playing.
The best session musicians love doing what they do. In a very real sense, they would rather play a gig than eat. They are driven to succeed, and they are driven to attain excellence.
Do you have that inner-drive?
There is no substitute for experience
If so, get out there are play your instrument. Get out there and beg for gigs. Be the fly on the wall who will not go away in the local music scene. Make yourself into a musician who can be trusted, and make yourself into a musician who will only settle on the very best performance. Put in your years and yes, I said years, and eventually, if the stars are perfectly aligned, you will be the cream rising to the top.
A final word about Kip Allen
Since 2008, Kip Allen has been a name known in Nashville as a songwriter, music producer, session musician, and tour musician. When the very best is needed in Nashville, Kip Allen’s name will always be mentioned. Call Kip, tell him what you are working on, what you want, and what you envision . . . but only if you want the very best that Nashville has to offer.
