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Jeremy: I want to go back to something. What skills do you think a session singer needs to have?

Kim: Interestingly, I’ve been asked this question a lot and I’ve put a singers’ advice page on my website to deal with this. So if you don’t mind, I’m actually going to refer to it.

Jeremy: No, not at all, we can reference it. (http://www.kimchandler.net/SessionAdvice.htm)

Kim: Because I had to think through it, with so many enquiries from people interested in getting into session work basically asking me as someone who’s been doing it for the last 20 years, what is it and what do I need to be able to do to do it? And I thought, great, well I need to sit down and really think this through...

Jeremy: Yep

Kim: So what I’ve got here are the 10 points on my website.

Point number one: the first one is “have you ever tried it?”

Because a lot of people don’t realise the enormous difference between singing live for an audience where you get to feed from the audience’s reaction and the visual side of the performance is so important along with the vocal side. All of that ceases to exist and you’re standing in this funny little room that has absolutely no acoustic feedback in it at all , it’s what’s called a…

Jeremy: Dead room

Kim: Dead room, absolutely, it has to be. No audience, no nothing, just a funny little microphone and foam is what you have to perform in front of.

A lot of people find the scrutiny of the recording process really quite uncomfortable too. They hear themselves back and say “that’s not me, I don’t sound like that!”. Yes, love, that’s what you do sound like! We hear our own voice on the inside and on the outside, so when you’re hearing just the outside version for the very first time it can be quite a shocking experience.

So what I say to people is before you even think of pursuing it, have an experience in the studio, of hearing your own voice back. Do you like the environment, do you like what it feels like, do you like what it sounds like? Because if you don’t, that is what it is. You’re not going to change it, so you need to experience it first to see whether it’s something you even want to be part of because for many singers it just doesn’t suit.

Point number two is do you learn things really, really quickly?

Because 'time is money', the old adage, you have to not only be able to learn things very fast by ear, but there are certain sessions where you have to be able to learn things fast by reading too. In my personal experience, and in the type of session work I do, I do way more 'ear' gigs than I do reading gigs, but when reading gigs come along they’re often at a ridiculously high level. So you get thrust this set of what is commonly known as 'fly sh*t' and some of it can be really quite intimidating.

I think back to the one experience I had of doing film music which was last year doing the "Pirates of the Caribbean – At World’s End" (the third movie). You walk in, the score is on the stand, you’re paired with one other person who’s singing your part (I was on Alto 1). Fortunately she was a seasoned film score singer.

It was my first experience so I was a 'virgin' of film score singing at the time and very excited about it. I didn’t realise you don’t generally get given starting notes and you don’t really get a run-through either. You have this score that’s anything from four part up to six part or even eight part harmony in front of you. The girl who was beside me, who was the seasoned film score singer, had her tuning fork, tuned to A, which she put on her cheek. She hums that A to me and then we have to work out our starting note intervalically from that concert A, and hope to God we got the note right. And then it’s pretty much straight in, "OK, everyone, we’re going from bar 5, and…" in! OH MY GOD!

And the other thing is, because it’s to vision, every bar’s a different length, so it’s 4/4, 3/4, 7/8, 11/8 and syncopated within those bars. It was just nuts!

So when a reading gig comes along, you really have to have kept your reading skills up. We’re not just talking about "Baa Baa Black Sheep" here. And no pressure, Hans Zimmer who’s written the score, one of the most famous Hollywood composers, is listening online to the whole session! Do you want to be the person who got it wrong and have the whole take done again with everyone glaring daggers at you?! Fortunately nothing did, but I was petrified.

But it’s that sort of experience that keeps you right on the edge of your seat and right on the edge of your skills.

Jeremy: And good for you for doing something new as well, to keep your hand in.

Kim: Yes, and that’s what I love about the job, it’s so varied, and you absolutely have no idea what the next email or the next phonecall on your mobile will require of you.

I had a radio jingle last year where I had to gargle in three part harmony to sound like fish underwater. The jingle producer asked me “can you sing whilst gargling?”, “I don’t know”. “Well, would you like to try?”, "Well, of course I’m being paid for it, I’ll give it a go". So once I’d done the melody, I had to sound like the fishy "Supremes", that’s what he wanted, which I can play you if you want to hear it.

Jeremy: I’d love to hear that.

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