Quote:
Originally Posted by vanblah
It's really amazing to watch session players work. They don't (as a rule) use sheet music or need anything other than their own musical style to work out a song.
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Well kind of. Depending on the session.
Usually tv and movie sessions require a score to be read. A cool example was in the old Guitar Player magazines where Tommy Tedesco would show the score used as well as explain the session of different tv and movie themes played on.
In alot of sessions the musicians will be given a lead sheet( chord symbols and melody line - or in Nashville numbers to correlate the degree of the chord to be played. ie Chords C, F, G = 1, 4, 5). Having said that, the musicians still have alot of room to do their own thing in their style provided it meshes with the context of what is going on.
Rock sessions are the most free flowing. I think Reb Beach of the groups Winger and Whitesnake said once he never saw a sheet of music in his time doing rock sessions, but probably was to do with not having the ability to read music and also much of the playing was off the cuff and at the discretion of the player.
But with people like Stevie Wonder and tons of other artists, the need to score your music was really not necessary since someone at the publishing house was already going to do it for sheet music sales. And besides at that level, musicians don't need the sheet music, they just need the key and an idea of the arrangement to do their thing.