SESSION DIARY Doubling Up
Session guitarist Adam Goldsmith uncovers the ‘double’ life he leads in order to finance his own forthcoming instrumental project
after spending the last few days in front of a computer screen writing demos for my forthcoming debut solo album, I’ve emerged, blinking, into the afternoon winter sun in search of fresh air, caffeine and a nice spot to write to you lovely people.
It occurs to me often during these kinds of episodes, that composing and recording jazz/rock instrumental music, with slight influences from drum ’n’ bass and The Rolling Stones, is not really a money spinner, or any real way for a grown man with two kids and a mortgage to spend his days.The main reason (unless you’re Pat Metheny or John Scofield) is summed up by the old joke,‘ How do you make £1 million out of jazz? Start with £2 million.’
To this end, the aspiring instrumentalist finds him or herself in a quandary. Becoming employable on your instrument seems the obvious solution. I’ve got some confessions to make; see if you can spot the common thread. I played the mandolin on the Dolmio adverts. I’ve played ukelele on countless advertising jingles, usually accompanied by someone whistling. I’ve played banjo with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. I’ve played bouzouki for The Three Musketeers series, and banjolele for The Halcyon on ITV.The common thread is: a) I’m using some of the proceeds to record and play my own music; and b) none of them involve playing guitar.
So this month’s subject is what’s known in the recording business as ‘doubling’. You may get hired for a session on ‘guitar doubling mandolin’ or ‘guitar (acoustic and electric) doubling banjo’. The crucial thing, certainly in my experience, is when you get a call such as this, just say yes. ‘Do you play mandolin, Adam? ’‘Yes, I do. ’‘Great, see you at the studio on Monday at 10am. ’Cue a weekend buying a mandolin, a mandolin for beginners book, some recordings of great mandolin players, and general crossing of fingers. What I have discovered – and I’ll use the mandolin as an example – is that if someone wants to record a mandolin concerto, they’ll call a specialist mandolin player. If someone wants 12 bars of mandolin for an advert, they may well call a studio guitar player. Country pickin’ badass banjo album? Call a serious country banjo player. 16 bars of banjo for a TV show? Call the studio guitar player.You get the picture.
But our next problem is that you have to sound halfway decent on these instruments. There’s obviously a degree of talent involved in hearing styles of music and being able to mimic them well, but my advice for the budding ‘doubler’ would be, wherever possible, tune the instrument like a guitar! It’s hard enough having to sight-read on guitar without someone moving the notes. For the majority of ‘commercial’ applications, people are after the feel or flavour of the instrument, not a period-correct recital. Best leave that to the experts. I feel I have to put a disclaimer in here, however. I mean no disrespect to the traditions of each of these instruments, but the majority of people who play these instruments are not experienced studio musicians. This means it may take them longer to get written parts together under the pressure of the studio ‘red light’, which in turn costs money for producers, and provides some unpredictability, which is not what people want in TV and film situations.
Meanwhile, I’ve just taken delivery of a Godin MultiOud, a more ‘Western guitarist’ friendly version of the Arabic oud. I’m going to use this on an album I’m writing with my production music partner for EMI. I can’t wait to get my teeth into this, although with the element of ‘no frets’, I feel this one may take a little longer!