Becoming a studio guitarist

Respected for their versatility and high professionalism, studio guitarists (also commonly referred to as session guitarists) have always been some of the most demanded musicians in the music industry world. Being a studio guitarist means at first place having a flawless guitar technique that allows you to perform in a wide range of music genres, knowing how to use a wide variety of guitar and recording equipment to achieve the desired guitar sounds in any given situation and last, but not least, constantly working to improve  your playing skills. You will also have to be either great at improvisation or at sight reading (prima vista) or ideally – at both.

Still determined to become a studio guitarist? OK then, here’s where to start from:

1) Practice, practice, practice – you should practice on a daily basis. That involves making different exercises to increase your speed, endurance and coordination, but also playing actual guitar songs, learning advanced guitar techniques, reading guitar books and articles, watching guitar lessons, practicing improvisation and sight reading. However, be extremely careful not to overwork and injure your hands. Doing all of the above-mentioned activities within a single day is way too much for a beginner (in fact even for an intermediate guitar player), as it requires at least 4 hours of playing per day. If you’re not used to playing that much, your hands won’t be able to handle the sudden change and you will most probably injure yourself. So to avoid injuries you have to gradually increase your playing time instead. Start with 45 minutes of guitar playing and 15 minutes of rest. If your hands feel relaxed after the rest, you can go for another 45 minutes of playing and another 15 minutes of rest. You can keep increasing your series like this, until you reach 8 series per day, which is equal to a total of 6 hours of guitar playing and 2 hours of rest.

2) Play guitar in a band – Find some bands to play with. A new band is always a new challenge and you will always learn new things, either from your bandmates, from the songs that you rehearse or from the fact that the place you’re rehearsing in is filled with equipment that’s completely unknown to you. With time you will not only increase your repertoire, which is always a good thing for a studio guitarist, but you will also get used to shaping your guitar sound with amps, effects, and even guitars that you have never used before and that’s a thing that happens way too often in the career of a studio guitarist. One thing that’s important to note – when playing with different bands, try not to stick with bands that play in the same genre. For example playing in 3 different hard rock bands won’t be very useful to you compared to playing in a hard rock band, jazz band and country band. After all, you need to learn to be versatile.

continues in part 2…

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