Vocal “Decathletes” – inside the hidden world of Session Singing!
Thursday 3rd July 2025, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
What is a session singer? Officially it’s a freelance, short-term “singer for hire” brought in to be part of a live or recorded musical project. However, it’s more generally understood to be the “behind-the-scenes” singer who is regularly booked for paid recording work. The type of work (and pay) varies a lot. The following are some examples:
- Advertising jingles & station idents
- Singing on new material that songwriters have written - "demo songs"
- Backing vocals on tracks/albums and new shows, e.g. for cruise lines
- Lead vocal features on songs written by others for release - “feature vocals”
- Vocals for movie soundtracks and TV series
To be employable in this role, singers are best to have a generic rather than distinctive ‘signature’ sound, be stylistically very versatile (vocal “decathletes”), have a reliable, robust vocal technique, a great ear for vocal blending, quick melody learning & harmonising, a solid understanding of music and be able to thrive & deliver under tight time pressure in the challenging, unique performing conditions of the recording studio.
Session singing is a side of the music industry that is largely hidden from the public and isn’t easy to find out much about, even online. So, with 35 years of session singing experience, the presenter will cover around ten different types of session work, provide examples, outline what skill set is required for each one and give some advice on how to get into this sort of work.
As further background, here also are some videos on this topic featuring the presenter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtpmH_zJ0WE
🏷️ Price £30 (UK VAT inclusive)
🎥 Recording automatically sent to all who book (even if you cannot attend live)
▶️ Rewatch as many times as you like
📜 Certificate of attendance available
Kim Chandler
Kim Chandler (MMus BMusEd) is a renowned contemporary vocal coach & session singer. She runs a busy private studio in Marbella, Spain, where she coaches an elite clientele of stadium band singers, including BRIT award winners & GRAMMY nominees, artists from a range of genres, professional singers and vocal coaches online.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Monday 15th June 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Tuesday 16th June 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Wednesday 17th June 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Thursday 18th June 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Friday 19th June 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
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Debbie Winter
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Thursday 18th June 2026
9:00 PM - 11:00 PM
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Dr Mark Seton
Join Dr Mark Seton as he discusses his recent research with creatives (260 participants) on how many are seeking to be more empowered in their personal and professional lives, as well as more embodied and enduring in the midst of rapidly changing life and work. This foundational and interactive workshop takes us on an embodied journey into how the actual heart functions and its crucial partnership with our lungs. In this course we’ll learn from their collective wisdom how to remain healthily ‘opened’ and ‘closed’ at the same time, to breath in and breath out, allowing time for both refreshment and recovery between each beat of our hearts, and each drawing of breath.
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5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
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Dr Rachel B. Goldenberg
According to a 2016 study, nearly 1 in 5 people living in the UK have received a diagnosis of lung disease, making it highly likely that clinicians and voice teachers will encounter a singer living with a lung disease. Join Dr. Rachel B. Goldenberg, a singing teacher and speech-language pathologist, as she introduces the foundational concepts of Singing for Lung Health (SLH) and discusses the evolution of the field and its practical applications for respiratory health. While there was little research 15 years ago, SLH is now described as an "exploding field" that bridges the healthcare and music worlds!