Ashley Jarmack on Building a Session Woodwind Career in LA (Episode 132)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

Nomad and woodwind specialist Ashley Jarmack played on the same sessions for months before they ever met. They recorded nine episodes and countless cues together for the Netflix animated series Maya and the Three, under composer Tim Davies, and finally said hello at the wrap party, after both of them got lost looking for the front door.

Ashley is a New York born, Los Angeles based player on saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, English horn and a long list of flutes and reed instruments from around the world. Her credits include Camila Cabello, Lionel Richie, Michael Bublé and Andrea Bocelli, plus The Voice and American Idol. In Episode 132 she shares how a working session musician builds a niche, beats imposter syndrome and treats the body as the real instrument.

Create your own music, not only other people's

Ashley spent her whole life playing other people's music and was fine with it. Then the pandemic gave her time to experiment, and she found that creating her own music was fulfilling in a way she didn't know she needed. She started arranging sound colors nobody usually combines: a flute from China, a flute from Africa, an Irish whistle, something from India, all in one texture.

Nomad related hard. If he isn't creating on a regular basis, he gets irritable, anxious and miserable. Sit down and play three or four of his own songs, or write a 90-second underscore cue, and he can breathe again.

The bonus for Ashley: those experiments made her better at her job. Now she can talk to composers about which instruments work together and why, and she has examples to show them.

Use social media to reach the right people

Those examples live on her socials. Her approach is the opposite of chasing virality.

"It's about thinking about who your audience is and getting those people to see your content, rather than having 100 million views and going viral, because that's not always what you want."

Ashley Jarmack, 7:19

Nomad called it one of the best uses of social media he has heard. He also pointed to a rule of marketing: find a niche of a niche of a niche and hone in on it, instead of trying to be everything to everybody. Ashley is the woodwind family, then the flute family, then world instruments. That niche is exactly why her film and TV work keeps coming, like the 123 cues she was about to record when she walked in. Work begets work.

Jack of all trades, master of some

At the Maya and the Three wrap party, Ashley confided that she was feeling imposter syndrome. Nomad sees it as a cousin of performance anxiety. Session players are hired to do anything on the spot, so we have to be chameleons, and that is where the doubt creeps in.

His fix came from composer John Powell. During a lunch break on Ferdinand, Nomad interviewed him, and John passed on his father's twist on the old saying.

"Jack of all trades, master of some. You have to know how to do everything."

Nomad, quoting John Powell, 13:23

You will have three or four things you are the expert at, and ten more you can do pretty well. Nomad said it felt like permission to stop feeling like an imposter. Ashley agreed: when she studied one instrument in college she never felt good enough, and playing many instruments has made her a better, less frustrated musician. If one doesn't feel good that day, switch to another.

Your body is the instrument

Ashley's biggest discovery came from the Turkish ney, which uses a completely different embouchure. While chasing a better tone, she relaxed her jaw and her sound changed on the spot. Then it changed on saxophone, flute and clarinet too. She had been carrying tension in her jaw, neck and shoulders through her whole twenties without knowing it, while friends kept blaming their reeds and mouthpieces.

She also learned that teachers disagree. One told her the rib cage expands when you breathe, another said ribs are bones and to focus on the belly. Her answer was to take what each shared and find what worked for her. Nomad did the same, studying classical, jazz, rock, funk and more with as many teachers as he could.

Now she tells students that the clarinet in their hands is not really their instrument.

"This flute, this clarinet, will never ever make sound on its own."

Ashley Jarmack, 29:00

Nomad matched it with a story about Chet Atkins. A fan told him after a show that his guitar sounded great. Chet set it on the stand and asked, "How does it sound now?"

Take the job that keeps you in the game

Ashley's path to LA was not a straight line. She practiced every day as a kid, holidays included, because her mom would not sign the practice sheet otherwise. She studied saxophone performance plus Spanish and Portuguese, and in 2006 she made the Disney All-American College Band in Los Angeles.

When she moved to LA after her degree, she gave herself one week to get oriented, then applied for jobs. She worked at two music stores and kept one of those jobs for eight years. Within six months she had students. She had no connections, until one player she knew started having her sub here and there. Her message to grads who think a day job is beneath them: it isn't. Luck = preparation + opportunity.

The takeaway

Find your niche and show it to the people who hire. Know a lot, master some. Relax, because you are the instrument. And take the work that keeps you close to the music while the calls start coming. Reliability beats virtuosity, and Ashley proves you can have both. If you are ready to build that path for yourself, start with the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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