The studio guitarist’s guide to happiness and personal fulfilment, as related by our resident session ace. This month: If It Ain’t Broke, It Soon Will Be.

Mitch: obsessive and compulsive? He certainly tries very hard not to be so!

Oddly enough, I find that the most stressful aspect of studio work is not the fear of failure. The nightmare of being handed a guitar part that you can’t sight read. Or then, having blundered through a stormy sea of semiquavers, discover that it’s technically beyond your ability due to tempo torture or musicality malfunction. Modesty, humility and other undesirable professional defects dictate that I must confess that any or all of the above can happen on occasion. But the thought doesn’t keep me awake at night clutching my Bonnie Raitt comfort teddy. In truth, my particular confidence crusher is the constant anxiety that something, somewhere along the human/instrument interface will let go with an accompanying bang, crash and involuntary four-letter outburst. To be followed by a silence in which musical director and orchestra stare contemptuously as you flounder helplessly, studio time evaporating at the speed of fright.