April 25, 2012
In this episode I’ll talk a little bit about what it means to be professional. It’s an important topic and I would love to hear from you if you have any comments. Below is a link to the PDF I mentioned during the podcast.
Click here to download the PDF of the “10 principles to being professional”.
April 5, 2012
Dear Musicians,
Some cruise ship contracts can be 6 months long (or more if you decide to extend). Staying motivated throughout your contract is very important and will help to leave a good impression of your overall performance.
I had already touched on this subject with the topic “What to do with your free time“, which talks about some of the things you can do when you’re not on stage. This topic, however, is about your actual performance; making sure you don’t let your performance slip because of monotony.more info
March 23, 2012
In episode 23 of “Music On Cruise Ships”, I’ll talk about three issues that I see repeatedly during auditions for the orchestra positions on ships. Learning how not to make these mistakes may make you more successful with any of your upcoming auditions.
March 22, 2012
Dear musicians,
The article below was first posted on my forum back in 2006. It’s still relevant and thus I wanted to re-post it.
I have been a musician since the age of 7 and in my career I’ve passed a larger number of auditions all of which have taught me something. These days, however, as the owner of a talent agency, I seem to be learning a disproportionate amount more about these same auditions. There is something to be said about looking at an issue from different perspectives.
In this article, I want to shed some light on what an audition process looks like from the point of view of the “auditioner” rather than the “auditionee.” I’ll give you seven tips that will hopefully help you prepare better for upcoming auditions.
I should mention that my company hires musicians, bands, and variety acts for placement on cruise ships and thus the auditions I’ll talk about will mostly relate to cruise line entertainment auditions, however, auditions for jobs outside of the cruise line industry are very similar so this applies to just about any musician.
Let me quickly outline the various types of auditions you can encounter when applying for a job on a cruise ship.
The most obvious type would be the live audition, where you go to the audition location in person and play what’s asked of you.
You may also be asked to record your audition on videotape and mail it to the company. This is very similar to the first category since you’d play almost exactly the same music.
And finally, you may be asked to submit a recording of your band or your solo act to the company. This audition differs from the previous two in that you don’t have to perform music that the company provides, but rather your own repertoire.
There are several problems that keep arising in regards to these different types of auditions that have led me to compile the following tips. more info
January 23, 2012
Dear Musicians,
I think it’s safe to say that most musicians are naturally driven to play as best they can. No one in their right mind would go on stage and embarrass themselves on purpose. We thus practice individually and rehearse in groups, to get the overall music to sound as good as possible.
However, tangible factors such as amount of practice or talent, and the experience of the individual are not the only ones affecting a musician’s performance. A much more unlikely factor may have a much bigger impact on a performance than we would like to acknowledge sometimes. The musician’s confidence level. more info
January 9, 2012
Let’s face it, being or becoming a good musician is tough. Theory, harmony, arranging, ear training, composing, history, sight-reading, instrument related technical skills, embouchure, stylistics, improvisation, ensemble playing… the list seems endless. One can spend several lifetimes and still not perfect all aspects of music. And I don’t believe that it is necessary to be perfect. Most, if not all of us, have weaknesses in some areas, and thus we practice and continually strive to get better.
However, I believe that there is one important aspect that a lot of us neglect, even though it may very well be a deciding factor in determining the success of your career. I’m talking about a professional attitude.
October 18, 2009
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.more info
October 17, 2009
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. more info
October 12, 2009
Dear Musicians,
Memorizing repertoire is an important part of your performance and can be the deciding factor for cruise lines to, or not to, hire you. This affects literally all lounge entertainers, whether you’re a classical ensemble, cover band, cocktail pianist, piano vocalist, guitar vocalist etc.
Now, for some of the above-mentioned entertainers this has been a given. Cover bands, for example, rarely read music while they play and it would be pretty funny to see them read “Stairway to heaven”…But it’s not as obvious for some other entertainers like classical ensembles, for example. more info
September 4, 2009
Dear Musicians,
Today we’ll take a closer look at the orchestra auditions for saxophone players. For your convenience I’ve listed below all the recent podcast episodes about auditions.
