Dennis M
Junior Member
Hey, everybody,
Last April I started working on a cruise ship as a guitarist with the show band. I love it. After "practicing" for 44 years , I finally got a job as a paying musician!
We play every day, different venues around the ship, we get paid on a daily basis, the food is great (we eat with the passengers in the Lido), the accomodations are small, but do-able, and the musicians I work with are really good. I play electric: lead, rhythm, slide, and harmonica, using my Strat, and usually a Fender Twin Reverb, or a Roland Jazz Chorus.
I have been to the Baltics, and the countries in and around the North Sea, and am able to get off the ship in each and every port to explore the cities and ports. This fall, I was in Mexico, the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, and I leave next week for a series of Hawaiin cruises. 3 months at a time.
This fall I set out for a 6-month gig which will take us to Alaska, Japan, China, S. Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, The Great Barrier Reef, and then Christmas in New Zealand! Phew!
One must be able to read music, like you are reading this post. But it is a great gig, and the only type of full time job for musicians out there, what with the ecomony. Put aside your stereotype of cruise ship bands: this gig rocks! The 21st Century cruise line passenger wants to hear Beatles, Clapton and Santana!
Really!
I would be glad to discuss more with anybody who is interested. It is not for everybody; a lot of my musician friends turn their noses up at this, they have families, don't want to be away for months at a time (that is the only downer), or they just aren't up to the challenge of reading and playing music on a daily basis.
But it is a great gig, like I said, and am happy to be working and doing something I love. It hardly feels like work.
Dennis M.
Last April I started working on a cruise ship as a guitarist with the show band. I love it. After "practicing" for 44 years , I finally got a job as a paying musician!
We play every day, different venues around the ship, we get paid on a daily basis, the food is great (we eat with the passengers in the Lido), the accomodations are small, but do-able, and the musicians I work with are really good. I play electric: lead, rhythm, slide, and harmonica, using my Strat, and usually a Fender Twin Reverb, or a Roland Jazz Chorus.
I have been to the Baltics, and the countries in and around the North Sea, and am able to get off the ship in each and every port to explore the cities and ports. This fall, I was in Mexico, the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, and I leave next week for a series of Hawaiin cruises. 3 months at a time.
This fall I set out for a 6-month gig which will take us to Alaska, Japan, China, S. Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, The Great Barrier Reef, and then Christmas in New Zealand! Phew!
One must be able to read music, like you are reading this post. But it is a great gig, and the only type of full time job for musicians out there, what with the ecomony. Put aside your stereotype of cruise ship bands: this gig rocks! The 21st Century cruise line passenger wants to hear Beatles, Clapton and Santana!
Really!
I would be glad to discuss more with anybody who is interested. It is not for everybody; a lot of my musician friends turn their noses up at this, they have families, don't want to be away for months at a time (that is the only downer), or they just aren't up to the challenge of reading and playing music on a daily basis.
But it is a great gig, like I said, and am happy to be working and doing something I love. It hardly feels like work.
Dennis M.