Session Musician or Featured Artist? Guidance by MU, FAC & Kelli-Leigh

The MU and FAC published a joint guidance and advice to help musicians make an informed decision on whether to be engaged as a session musician or as a featured artist, and how to negotiate your deal. Knowing whether you should be engaged as a session musician or as a featured artist can often be obvious, but there are times when your role can be difficult to determine. This can be particularly difficult for lead vocalists going in to work with another artist or producer, but can also apply to an instrumentalist taking on a lead role. You may have been booked for a recording session, or are getting into recording work and don’t quite understand what you should be asking for or are entitled to for your performance on the recording. Here we have provided some guidance and questions for you to ask the engager, in order for you to make an informed decision and understand where it might be necessary to negotiate.