How to Pick Session Musicians in Nashville

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Chris Latham and we're here today at EMI Music Publishing's Nashville recording studio on Music Row with Expert Village. When you come to Nashville, let me encourage you to hire the musicians that are here and work together all the time for several different reasons. These guys play together, two to three sessions a day so they don't even have to speak what is going to happen. They write up a number chart, a Nashville number system, and they read those charts and they know how to play around each other, they don't step on each other when they record. There's just several unspoken rules about who takes fills and what verses, choruses. You may be a great player or know a great player in your hometown but I guarantee you, it's going to slow the session down if you try to include them on your session here because they don't know the routine of doing things. They may be a great player in your hometown but there are certain things that happen here as far following the click, playing in time, playing with groove that these guys are used to, that they know how to do with each other. So let me encourage you to use players that play together all the time. It makes a world of difference. Also, singers, harmony singers. You may sing in the choir, you may have a friend that sings in the choir that you want to bring up here to sing harmonies with you. There are people here that do it professionally, do it very quickly. And you think well, I'll have to pay that person to do it but what you'll pay that person, you'll save in studio time. It takes time to get all this done and people can get in here and knock out great harmony singing, great playing in a limited amount of time and you just won't be able to bring that from home."