music on cruise ships

Dear Musicians,

One way in which gigs on cruise ships are different from gigs on land is that you’ll have to travel far with your gear. If you take lots of it, you will almost certainly be charged big bucks by the airlines and you’ll run the risk that they’ll damage it. Regardless of the charges and the risks involved, you’ll also have to carry your gear and set it up. Who wants to break hauling gear around? Cruise lines do ask you to play in various lounges around the ship, so moving your gear happens quite often.

So, it goes without saying that taking as little gear as possible will save trouble and cash. [Read more →]

Dear Musicians,

This is one of the funkiest songs I know. Get ready to shake it. (Yes another song for Steve Gadd to shine).

Artist: Al Jarreau
Album: Roof Garden
Song: Roof Garden

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Dear Musicians,

Today’s pick is from one of my all-time favorite albums. Al Jarreau recorded “This Time” in 1980 with producer Jay Graydon. Nothing but the best of the best musicians on this album. A lot of the songs are really “funky” and performed with a lot of taste and soul. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Album: This Time
Artist: Al Jarreau
Song: Spain

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Dear musicians,

The CLIA or Cruise Lines International Association, has posted some more statistics and an overall positive outlook on the immediate future of cruising on their Web site. It’s a long read but don’t worry, I have picked out some of the more interesting tidbits for you. [Read more →]

Dear musicians,

Just because you’re at sea doesn’t mean you have to stop being creative. If you’re planning to record some of your song ideas the minute they pop into your head, you need a flexible recording device with you. Korg just announced their “Sound on sound” multi-track recorder, that’s small enough to fit in any gig bag and it’s packed with some nice features.

The unit can record an unlimited amount of tracks (not that you need that but nice to see it could), it’s got 50 preset rhythm patterns on board, can record up to 200 songs, uses AA batteries and it’s even got a tuner built-in. It’s also got “sound stretch” built-in, which lets you speed up or slow down music without changing the pitch. This actually comes in handy when you want to learn a difficult passage of some lick.

Oh, and it’s also got 100 effects built-in for guitar, bass and vocals.

A big drawback is that it doesn’t have any XLR inputs, only a 1/4″ balanced phone jack and a 1/8″ stereo mini jack. The unit isn’t shipping yet so yo have to be patient, and the list price is a bit of a enigma since many sites show a different price. The “buy now” feature on the Korg site shows it as selling for $299.99 once it ships. Probably safe to say that you’ll be able to get it for less soon.

Check it out.

Dear musicians,

I’m always on the lookout for gear that either makes it easier or more fun to perform on the road, and I’ve come across a gadget that definitely delivers. TC Electronics has introduced it’s new guitar and bass tuner “PolyTune“. It’s called that because it let’s you strum all of your strings at once and it tells you which ones are out of tune. This is a huge time saver over the older tuners that made you tune the strings one by one. All you do is strum all of your strings at once and the device will display in green the strings that are in tune and in red the strings that needs to be tuned.

You may remember TC Electronics from a previous post on this blog about their Harmony G, a box that adds harmonies based on your voice. This company is coming out with really high quality products that enable you to keep your performances fresh and, now with the PolyTune, makes your life easier.

Check out the video below.

Dear musicians,

Sax players face a couple of unique challenges on cruise ships such as having to double on flute and clarinet, packing their instruments so that they make it to the ship safely and more. Rob Pratt, a friend, client and saxophone player was nice enough to record a conversation with me about these challenges. Rob had great insights to share about his experiences, insights that might even be of benefit to those that aren’t even looking to be a part of the orchestra.

Enjoy.

 

 Enhanced Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dear musicians,

You might be on a ship during the christmas holidays and you might be asking yourself if there’s any specific repertoire you might need during those days. Well, the answer is yes, you should definitely be prepared to play some christmas songs and you should definitely have a version of Auld Lang Syne handy for the New Year’s party. [Read more →]

Dear Musicians,

In the coming weeks I’ll be posting interviews with some of our clients and friends that work on cruise ships. This way you’ll get some first hand accounts on what these gigs are all about.

Today, I’ll talk to George Adams, a guitar/vocalist who has recently added cruise ship gigs to his successful land-based career. He’ll tell us about his first gig on a cruise ship. You can learn more about George and listen to his music on his page on Reverb Nation.

Here’s my conversation with him.

 

 Interview with a guitar/vocalist - Episode 19: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dear Musicians,

Just a quick note to let you know that you no longer need to worry about whether our domain end in .com or .ca because both of them work now.

Dear Musicians,

We get many demos from artists that have a bit of a false sense of entitlement when it comes to cruise ship jobs. Often, this entitlement comes from the fact that these entertainers have already worked on ships before and thus think that what was good enough once will always be good enough.

This is not so, unfortunately. [Read more →]

Dear Musicians,

This is an article I was hoping I would never have to write. But here I am, typing away, because common sense is, apparently, a lot less common than you’d think. Wikipedia says: “common sense” equates to the knowledge and experience which most people allegedly have, or which the person using the term believes that they do or should have.

Let me explain. [Read more →]