Hi guys, how´s everything going?
You know, I was browsing around the Forum and I was quite surprised about how little is known about this gig and how many myths and misconceptions there are about it.
I would like to share my experience and my point of view about this job, and while we are here I´ll tell you a bit about my project.
My name is Federico Rios, I´ve been working in the cruise line industry for around 3 years aboard 7 different ships as a Main Orchestra Drummer. (there´s several bands and soloist on board, I´ll tell more about it further down…)
The Main Orchestra is basically the one in charge of playing in the Theatre. We had three important roles; Playing the Muscial Production Shows, Playing the Fly-On acts and playing for the important social events aboard like the Captain´s Cocktail to name one. All of these shows are sight-read! For most of them there´s no rehearsal at all, and for some there´s really short ones (maybe half an hour). This is why having excellent reading skills is a must for this gig.
Let me tell you a bit about the shows we play,
Production Shows: These are Click-Tracked Broadway Style Shows. We play these in the Main Theatre along with the dancer cast (they are around 20 dancers or so), Production Singers (Depending on the ship, there might be from 2 to 5 singers), the Orchestra (us) and a huge technical team in charge of running the lights, lasers, sound, pyro, drops, etc etc. These highly budgeted theaters accommodate between 2,500 to 3,500 people depending on the ship. They really are massive! There´s usually no rehearsals for these shows, you sight read them live! you do get the music in advance (maybe the day before) to go over it in your little cabin, but there´s usually no chance of actually playing them before the live performance. Some ships have only 2 of these shows, some ships have up to 6 of them! depending on the duration of the cruise (imagine this, if you go on a cruise as a passenger for 3 days, there´s really no chance of you seeing more than 2 different shows, but if you go on a cruise for 18 days or so, you might wanna see more than 2 shows). So, as i said, you have to be right on the money with your sight reading skills!
The Fly-on Acts (also called Headliners): these are performers who fly to the ship the same day of their performance. It could be a different show every week and any kind of music! seriously… anything! I´ve played everything from opera-like singers, classical violin players (they are usually in the ships sailing in Europe) rock/pop/motown tributes (these are the most common ones porting out of USA), Big Band singers (I´ve played thousands of Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. tributes), Latin singers, Comedians, jugglers, Tower of Power tributes, even an Argentinian Folk Gauchos show! The particularity about this shows is that, as I said, the performer gets on board the same day of the show, so, there´s practically no time for rehearsals, maybe you get a half an hour rehearsal just to go through beginnings, endings, tempo/meter changes and modulations, the rest of the song is sight read live. The key point here is to know what to do as soon as they handed the chart to you, you gotta know what to look for… you might have 30 seconds from the time they handed it to you till the MD counts off the tune. (if the fly-on act has been on board before and the band hasn't change much, there's no rehearsal at all, you better remember everything from last time!)
And then we play the Social events on board, Like the Captain's Cocktail, the farewell party, etc etc… This are live sets (no click-track thing) where you play any kind of arrangements, from 30´s and 40´s oldies swing stuff, latin, funk, jazz combos, even pop/motown sets with the singers.
The charts!!!! let me tell you about the bloody charts! They are in such a bad shape and they are so messy you wouldn't believe it, (mostly the Fly-On acts charts) They are hand written on top of the ink, scratching the ink and the scratching the scratch to recall the ink again, doodles all over, lots of text and some times even cursing!!! But there´s a reason for this, and a valid one -- even for the cursing
-- This is the deal, imagine you are the drummer, you are sight reading, lets say a fairly demanding show, but then you realize that your chart doesn't match the music, at all! So you try to figure out what could be wrong with it, and then you ask the MD, for example "Is there a chance that we skipped section B and C?" (you never ask the the performer coz usually they have no clue of what you are talking about, when it comes to charts, notes, tempo, etc) so your MD says "Of course, I have'em scratched on my chart, don't you?" and before he gave you the chance to say "nop" he's counting the tune again, so you scratch that part as fast as you can. But then the performer might decide that he liked it better before, when B and C were in, so you scratch the scratch! and so on… Now imagine that the same chart, the same old piece of paper that he´s being using for years, has gone through the hands of, literally, hundreds of drummers, each of them making their own doodles! I wish I could post a pic here… But if you go on my facebook (Address in the bottom) you´ll find some.
You get to know so many professional musicians from all over the world, I can certainly state that I have friend everywhere I wanna go for vacation and crash at their place! That´s something I really cherish from this experience, I made really good friends.
A bit about the life off the band stand,
You get to visit so many places! you can go literally around the world! I've been in Lisbon, Venice, like 5 different greek islands, turkey, can't even count how many places i've been in the Caribbean, Alaska, Seattle, Orlando, Miami, New York etc etc…
You have soooo much free time! you play from 2 to 4 hours a day, and you have a day off a week usually. So it´s totally up to you what you do with that time, a lot of people sign up for university courses that you can do via distance learning so you can either undertake a whole career change while you are on a ship, or you can finish your study, learn a new language, or you can practice your instrument and become a better musician, or you can just be more of a tourist and get off on every port and get to really know some awesome places! You always play at night, when the ship is on the move, so every time you are in a port of call you are free to go out! My last ship used to go Alaska… man, what a place!! I became such a hiker! I went to every mountain peak I could reach in within the time we were on port, the longest hike I did was a 25 miles hike up to the Denver Glacier on my own, I even run across a grisly bear!
Other great thing about this job is that it´s a great money saver!
You can spend simply no money if you would like to. There´s no rent or bills to pay, no food to buy, and the best of all, NO COMUTE! if you are a drummer you know what I´m talking about! no carrying, no setting up, no packing up!. All you spend money on is on treats, like eating out, and beer! (which is ridiculously cheap, U$1,25 the pint at the Crew Bar). So you can come back home with a good lump of money and put it into your savings. Most of the band members are there to pay their student's loan.
Now, you have to be willing to be out touring for a good amount of time, the contracts (when you are new to the company) are anywhere from 4 to 6 months, but then, when you've been with the company for a while they get more flexible and let you do short contracts, I've done 7 months contracts and also one or two weeks contracts. Now I don't do long contracts anymore, every several months I go there for a week or two when they need to fill in a spot.
Is the job artistically rewarding? Well that´s totally up to you I think...
It is true that you have to play what it´s written, and there's not a lot of room for "playing whatever you want" when your are reading a chart, but you can always find the best way of interpreting that chart therefore making it your own. And then there's some set´s where there's no reading involved, just a jazz combo playing standards the way you like it. In some of the ships I've formed my own quartet or trio, with some other members of the band (or members from the other bands) so we would get together when ever we wanted to rehears our tunes, improvise, and do our thing! We even became part of the entertainment schedule, meaning, we would do sets that the orchestra should've done, that way we got to play our music live, give the band a day off (this also meant free beer at the bar, courtesy of the well-rested band), and give ourselves a bit of time off from the sight reading thing!
Salary… You make from U$2,000 to U$2,600 depending on the instrument you play and the amount of time you've been working for the company.
Alright, so if your read all this and you are still interested… let me tell you about my project!
My experience working in this industry made me realize there's a huge gap between theory and real life situations. What I mean is that what we learn in Uni or with our private tutors about sight reading and the function of the drummer in an orchestra, sometimes is not enough to face the exigencies that a professional sight-reading gig requires.
That's why I developed this "Sight-Reading and Chart Interpretation Course" mainly focused for the Orchestra Drummer Position aboard luxury cruise lines. But it's also very useful to dig a bit dipper in these skills if you want to play Theatre gigs at West End or any heavy sight-reading orchestra gig.
This course will be focused on the efficient reading and interpretation of charts, as well as the function of the drummer in an Orchestra.
Why isn't this a just a regular Sight Reading course?
The entirety of the material used for this course are actual charts played by the Carnival Cruise Lines
(CCL), Holland American Cruise Lines (HAL) and Royal Caribbean (RCCL) Orchestras. Like I told you before, the difference between the charts you are used to read in books or in on-land gigs and the the actual messy hieroglyphs we read on board is unbelievable! Moreover, when you go to the ship you will already have read a big lump of those charts, making the sight-reading factor easier.
The other really cool thing about this course is that once you are ready, you can audition straight with Carnival Cruise Lines! No agents involved! When you have reached the desired level of proficiency I will recommend you to my boss in the main office in Miami and set up an audition straight with him! See, this is the deal… I've worked for him for 3 years now and he has a very good opinion of me. I was his go-to guy, whenever they were trying to implement some new project on board some ship, I was the first one asked to join that band. So, now that I don't go on board that often I just recommend my students.
It's important to highlight that if you get hired you would be in direct contact with the office, not through an agent! This means that you don't have to pay commission to anybody! Agents usually charge between 15 and 20%, you make the math… Besides, you would always have to go through them for what ever you need (requesting ships, changing dates, changing ships, going back home for an emergency, etc). This way you are in direct contact with the office.
Now, There's something important I need to clarify, I'm not saying that I will give you a job, I'm not the one doing the hiring, but like I said, I will strongly recommend you and put you in contact with the right person. I can also assure you that I will prepare you and teach you everything you need to succeed, not only in the audition but also in the bandstand!
Course Description and Program
The course consist of two stages: Broad-ranging sight reading concepts and Specific and Practical Application for Cruise Ships Orchestras.
Stage One: Broad-ranging sight reading concepts.
• Charts transcription.
• Awareness and recognition of the chart´s implicit information.
• Set-ups. Differentiated by music style.
• Interpretation of the chart beyond what´s written. Concept of “Developing or Holding Back”
Stage Two: Specific and Practical Application for Cruise Ships
• Reading and Interpretation of real charts, such as:
◦ Musical theatre shows: Click-Tracked shows (Cabaret/Big Band, Rock and varieties)
◦ Repertoire used by the different Orchestras, 10 pieces, 7 pieces and 6 pieces bands. Wide
variety of styles.
◦ Fly-On Acts (Headliners): This charts are the messiest ones!
• How to maximize the little rehearsal time.
• Play-along and analysis of recordings and videos from the shows.
Duration
The length of the course will depend on the drummer´s current level of proficient, reading skills and musicality.
- GENUINE OPPORTUNITY OF GETTING HIRED BY CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES -
** PREVIOUS GRADUATES FROM THIS COURSE ARE ALREADY WORKING FOR CCL! **
If you have any questions about the course, the job or whatever, please call me or send me an email:
Federico Rios
[email protected]
0742 763 0367
Here you can find some videos of when I was onboard, playing in the orchestra, sound-checking, etc etc.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drummers- ... 3828170573
http://www.bandmix.co.uk/federico-rios/
Slots are going like crazy, don´t let time go by!
Cheers!
Fede
You know, I was browsing around the Forum and I was quite surprised about how little is known about this gig and how many myths and misconceptions there are about it.
I would like to share my experience and my point of view about this job, and while we are here I´ll tell you a bit about my project.
My name is Federico Rios, I´ve been working in the cruise line industry for around 3 years aboard 7 different ships as a Main Orchestra Drummer. (there´s several bands and soloist on board, I´ll tell more about it further down…)
The Main Orchestra is basically the one in charge of playing in the Theatre. We had three important roles; Playing the Muscial Production Shows, Playing the Fly-On acts and playing for the important social events aboard like the Captain´s Cocktail to name one. All of these shows are sight-read! For most of them there´s no rehearsal at all, and for some there´s really short ones (maybe half an hour). This is why having excellent reading skills is a must for this gig.
Let me tell you a bit about the shows we play,
Production Shows: These are Click-Tracked Broadway Style Shows. We play these in the Main Theatre along with the dancer cast (they are around 20 dancers or so), Production Singers (Depending on the ship, there might be from 2 to 5 singers), the Orchestra (us) and a huge technical team in charge of running the lights, lasers, sound, pyro, drops, etc etc. These highly budgeted theaters accommodate between 2,500 to 3,500 people depending on the ship. They really are massive! There´s usually no rehearsals for these shows, you sight read them live! you do get the music in advance (maybe the day before) to go over it in your little cabin, but there´s usually no chance of actually playing them before the live performance. Some ships have only 2 of these shows, some ships have up to 6 of them! depending on the duration of the cruise (imagine this, if you go on a cruise as a passenger for 3 days, there´s really no chance of you seeing more than 2 different shows, but if you go on a cruise for 18 days or so, you might wanna see more than 2 shows). So, as i said, you have to be right on the money with your sight reading skills!
The Fly-on Acts (also called Headliners): these are performers who fly to the ship the same day of their performance. It could be a different show every week and any kind of music! seriously… anything! I´ve played everything from opera-like singers, classical violin players (they are usually in the ships sailing in Europe) rock/pop/motown tributes (these are the most common ones porting out of USA), Big Band singers (I´ve played thousands of Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. tributes), Latin singers, Comedians, jugglers, Tower of Power tributes, even an Argentinian Folk Gauchos show! The particularity about this shows is that, as I said, the performer gets on board the same day of the show, so, there´s practically no time for rehearsals, maybe you get a half an hour rehearsal just to go through beginnings, endings, tempo/meter changes and modulations, the rest of the song is sight read live. The key point here is to know what to do as soon as they handed the chart to you, you gotta know what to look for… you might have 30 seconds from the time they handed it to you till the MD counts off the tune. (if the fly-on act has been on board before and the band hasn't change much, there's no rehearsal at all, you better remember everything from last time!)
And then we play the Social events on board, Like the Captain's Cocktail, the farewell party, etc etc… This are live sets (no click-track thing) where you play any kind of arrangements, from 30´s and 40´s oldies swing stuff, latin, funk, jazz combos, even pop/motown sets with the singers.
The charts!!!! let me tell you about the bloody charts! They are in such a bad shape and they are so messy you wouldn't believe it, (mostly the Fly-On acts charts) They are hand written on top of the ink, scratching the ink and the scratching the scratch to recall the ink again, doodles all over, lots of text and some times even cursing!!! But there´s a reason for this, and a valid one -- even for the cursing
-- This is the deal, imagine you are the drummer, you are sight reading, lets say a fairly demanding show, but then you realize that your chart doesn't match the music, at all! So you try to figure out what could be wrong with it, and then you ask the MD, for example "Is there a chance that we skipped section B and C?" (you never ask the the performer coz usually they have no clue of what you are talking about, when it comes to charts, notes, tempo, etc) so your MD says "Of course, I have'em scratched on my chart, don't you?" and before he gave you the chance to say "nop" he's counting the tune again, so you scratch that part as fast as you can. But then the performer might decide that he liked it better before, when B and C were in, so you scratch the scratch! and so on… Now imagine that the same chart, the same old piece of paper that he´s being using for years, has gone through the hands of, literally, hundreds of drummers, each of them making their own doodles! I wish I could post a pic here… But if you go on my facebook (Address in the bottom) you´ll find some.
You get to know so many professional musicians from all over the world, I can certainly state that I have friend everywhere I wanna go for vacation and crash at their place! That´s something I really cherish from this experience, I made really good friends.
A bit about the life off the band stand,
You get to visit so many places! you can go literally around the world! I've been in Lisbon, Venice, like 5 different greek islands, turkey, can't even count how many places i've been in the Caribbean, Alaska, Seattle, Orlando, Miami, New York etc etc…
You have soooo much free time! you play from 2 to 4 hours a day, and you have a day off a week usually. So it´s totally up to you what you do with that time, a lot of people sign up for university courses that you can do via distance learning so you can either undertake a whole career change while you are on a ship, or you can finish your study, learn a new language, or you can practice your instrument and become a better musician, or you can just be more of a tourist and get off on every port and get to really know some awesome places! You always play at night, when the ship is on the move, so every time you are in a port of call you are free to go out! My last ship used to go Alaska… man, what a place!! I became such a hiker! I went to every mountain peak I could reach in within the time we were on port, the longest hike I did was a 25 miles hike up to the Denver Glacier on my own, I even run across a grisly bear!
Other great thing about this job is that it´s a great money saver!
You can spend simply no money if you would like to. There´s no rent or bills to pay, no food to buy, and the best of all, NO COMUTE! if you are a drummer you know what I´m talking about! no carrying, no setting up, no packing up!. All you spend money on is on treats, like eating out, and beer! (which is ridiculously cheap, U$1,25 the pint at the Crew Bar). So you can come back home with a good lump of money and put it into your savings. Most of the band members are there to pay their student's loan.
Now, you have to be willing to be out touring for a good amount of time, the contracts (when you are new to the company) are anywhere from 4 to 6 months, but then, when you've been with the company for a while they get more flexible and let you do short contracts, I've done 7 months contracts and also one or two weeks contracts. Now I don't do long contracts anymore, every several months I go there for a week or two when they need to fill in a spot.
Is the job artistically rewarding? Well that´s totally up to you I think...
It is true that you have to play what it´s written, and there's not a lot of room for "playing whatever you want" when your are reading a chart, but you can always find the best way of interpreting that chart therefore making it your own. And then there's some set´s where there's no reading involved, just a jazz combo playing standards the way you like it. In some of the ships I've formed my own quartet or trio, with some other members of the band (or members from the other bands) so we would get together when ever we wanted to rehears our tunes, improvise, and do our thing! We even became part of the entertainment schedule, meaning, we would do sets that the orchestra should've done, that way we got to play our music live, give the band a day off (this also meant free beer at the bar, courtesy of the well-rested band), and give ourselves a bit of time off from the sight reading thing!
Salary… You make from U$2,000 to U$2,600 depending on the instrument you play and the amount of time you've been working for the company.
Alright, so if your read all this and you are still interested… let me tell you about my project!
My experience working in this industry made me realize there's a huge gap between theory and real life situations. What I mean is that what we learn in Uni or with our private tutors about sight reading and the function of the drummer in an orchestra, sometimes is not enough to face the exigencies that a professional sight-reading gig requires.
That's why I developed this "Sight-Reading and Chart Interpretation Course" mainly focused for the Orchestra Drummer Position aboard luxury cruise lines. But it's also very useful to dig a bit dipper in these skills if you want to play Theatre gigs at West End or any heavy sight-reading orchestra gig.
This course will be focused on the efficient reading and interpretation of charts, as well as the function of the drummer in an Orchestra.
Why isn't this a just a regular Sight Reading course?
The entirety of the material used for this course are actual charts played by the Carnival Cruise Lines
(CCL), Holland American Cruise Lines (HAL) and Royal Caribbean (RCCL) Orchestras. Like I told you before, the difference between the charts you are used to read in books or in on-land gigs and the the actual messy hieroglyphs we read on board is unbelievable! Moreover, when you go to the ship you will already have read a big lump of those charts, making the sight-reading factor easier.
The other really cool thing about this course is that once you are ready, you can audition straight with Carnival Cruise Lines! No agents involved! When you have reached the desired level of proficiency I will recommend you to my boss in the main office in Miami and set up an audition straight with him! See, this is the deal… I've worked for him for 3 years now and he has a very good opinion of me. I was his go-to guy, whenever they were trying to implement some new project on board some ship, I was the first one asked to join that band. So, now that I don't go on board that often I just recommend my students.
It's important to highlight that if you get hired you would be in direct contact with the office, not through an agent! This means that you don't have to pay commission to anybody! Agents usually charge between 15 and 20%, you make the math… Besides, you would always have to go through them for what ever you need (requesting ships, changing dates, changing ships, going back home for an emergency, etc). This way you are in direct contact with the office.
Now, There's something important I need to clarify, I'm not saying that I will give you a job, I'm not the one doing the hiring, but like I said, I will strongly recommend you and put you in contact with the right person. I can also assure you that I will prepare you and teach you everything you need to succeed, not only in the audition but also in the bandstand!
Course Description and Program
The course consist of two stages: Broad-ranging sight reading concepts and Specific and Practical Application for Cruise Ships Orchestras.
Stage One: Broad-ranging sight reading concepts.
• Charts transcription.
• Awareness and recognition of the chart´s implicit information.
• Set-ups. Differentiated by music style.
• Interpretation of the chart beyond what´s written. Concept of “Developing or Holding Back”
Stage Two: Specific and Practical Application for Cruise Ships
• Reading and Interpretation of real charts, such as:
◦ Musical theatre shows: Click-Tracked shows (Cabaret/Big Band, Rock and varieties)
◦ Repertoire used by the different Orchestras, 10 pieces, 7 pieces and 6 pieces bands. Wide
variety of styles.
◦ Fly-On Acts (Headliners): This charts are the messiest ones!
• How to maximize the little rehearsal time.
• Play-along and analysis of recordings and videos from the shows.
Duration
The length of the course will depend on the drummer´s current level of proficient, reading skills and musicality.
- GENUINE OPPORTUNITY OF GETTING HIRED BY CARNIVAL CRUISE LINES -
** PREVIOUS GRADUATES FROM THIS COURSE ARE ALREADY WORKING FOR CCL! **
If you have any questions about the course, the job or whatever, please call me or send me an email:
Federico Rios
[email protected]
0742 763 0367
Here you can find some videos of when I was onboard, playing in the orchestra, sound-checking, etc etc.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Drummers- ... 3828170573
http://www.bandmix.co.uk/federico-rios/
Slots are going like crazy, don´t let time go by!
Cheers!
Fede
..... I'd give it a shot if they did 
