I’m still puzzled as to why career management courses are still missing in some of today’s most prestigious Universities. It would be a shame and huge waste of time, effort and money, to not be able to apply the skills acquired during a music education.

Many musicians make poor decisions when it comes to managing their career. In fact, many of them may not realize that they are in charge of managing themselves. Musicians that may have been guided along by parents, teachers, student advisors or friends, may not realize that they’re in charge of their own career once school’s over. Coming to this realization is thus imperative to kick-start a successful career.

Perhaps it would help musicians to view their music career as a business. A business that needs representation, a business that needs to be marketed properly, a business that needs to stay up-to-date, a business that needs to maintain professional working relationships with other professionals in the music industry.

This translates into being pro-active with job hunts and interacting in a professional manner with other persons. Being on time for rehearsals and gigs, possessing proper phone manners, handling scheduling in a professional manner, being helpful and fun to be around etc.

This is not supposed to be a how-to article on career management, this article is supposed to merely awaken those that believe that gigs will magically appear out of nowhere regardless of how they interact with their surroundings. To give you an example; we organize a lot of auditions for those interested in cruise ship work. For some reason, a large number of individuals don’t have the decency to cancel auditions if they can’t make but decide to “no show” instead. Whether you want to believe it or not, this will hurt your career.

So take a moment to reflect on how you manage your career currently and if there is room for improvement.

Good luck.

I wanted to take a moment to reiterate that anyone interested in working on board a cruise ship must speak English well.
English is the mandatory language on most ships and must be good enough to have conversations with people, to understand technical terms in your area of expertise and to understand safety instuctions given to you during safety drills.

Safety officers on ships can get you signed off the ship if they feel that your English language skills are not strong enough as this may endanger you and other passengers in case of an emergency.

Furthermore, rehearsal times with orchestras are limited so musical directors can’t afford to lose time because of language barriers. Also, lounge entertainers will have to interact with passengers daily so it’s preferred that they don’t have a thick accent.

Some cruise lines make you take an English language proficiency test, so taking some lessons beforehand may be of benefit. Speaking more than one language can certainly be useful on ships as there will be guests of many nationalities, but English will most definitely be the primary language.

Finally, many cover bands don’t get hired if their lead vocalist has a strong accent. Yes, the various cruise lines have varying degrees of tolerance when it comes to accents, but in general, the major US cruise lines that carry mostly US passengers, prefer to have singers from countries where English is the native language.

Let us know if you have questions.

On a recent cruise I noticed that some of the entertainers don’t seem to apply themselves much to their performances and this may be understandable to some degree. Playing some popular requests over and over again could drive anyone nuts.

A piano/vocalist rattled down some of the songs as if the goal was to get to the end as quickly as possible. A caribbean duo barely added much interest to their keyboard sequences, and a guitar/vocalist didn’t even bother to add a proper ending to his midi sequences and just stopped the latter after he felt he the song should end there.

I absolutely understand the challenge you’re faced with when you have to perform three to four sets of 45 minutes each per night, 7 nights per week, but I believe that it could be of benefit to the musician if he or she put a bit more energy into the performances.

I believe that, especially with the slumping economy, where cruise lines have the luxury to pick from long lists of qualified musicians (see this post for an explanation), it is important to put your best work forward. And if you work on maintaining the quality of your performances or even improve them, you may find that an added bonus could be that you’re enjoying your job a lot more than if you do just the bare minimum.

So here are a couple of suggestions that may help you to achieve just this.

1. Upgrade your gear – This one is so blatently obvious with many artists that use the cheapest possible keyboards with midi sounds that are outdated and inadequate. Upgrading your gear does not mean spending tens of thousands of dollars. These days you can buy equipment that’s not hard on the wallet but makes you sound like a million bucks.

2. Come up with new arrangements – Playing a song well does not mean you have to use an arrangement that is as close to the original as possible. You can make your own arrangements. Add a new intro and/or ending, use a different groove, play an “acoustic” version, or freshen up your existing arrangements with new sounds. This may get you to enjoy your old sounding songs again and the extra effort will surely be felt by your audience. Don’t forget that making a new arrangement doesn’t mean you have to throw out the old. It just adds to your existing set list.

3. Record yourself and listen to the recordings – I know, after you’ve played a song for the 675,000th time, listening to yourself play that very same song may be the last thing you want to do. However, the rewards could be huge. One of the biggest problems I see is that entertainers rush through their songs. Another one is that they use particular embellishments that have become so automatic that they appear way too often and may not add any musical interest to the song at all. All of the above can be identified if you listen to yourself. Of course, you would have to apply a healthy dose of constructive criticism here in order to get some useful results.

4. Play the songs in different keys. Chances are that you can take a song up or down a step or a half step and you’ll still be within your range. Playing a song in a different key make bring out different qualities in your voice and may change the vibe of the song altogether. Some singers come across a bit “screamy” which may often suggest that they picked a key that’s too high. Other’s pick a key that’s too low and, as a result, the song sounds a bit “tired” or “lifeless”. At the very least, picking a new key will keep you on your toes harmonically.

5. Add repertoire – One of the entertainers I enjoyed on my recent cruise was smart in picking songs that suited his “raspy” voice nicely. As a result, however, I feel that he got stuck in a particular genre from which he couldn’t seem to escape. Each time I passed by the lounge he played in, the music sounded the same and started to bore me rather quickly. I understand that we all have our particular “comfort zone” and that we like to remain within it, but you do have to look at your performances from the perspective of the audience and make sure that you’re always entertaining. We certainly can’t please everybody, all the time, however, I think that we can make sure that don’t get stuck in routines that make us sound repetitive and boring.

I’m sure there are many more ideas that could get you to break out of your routine and offer something new and refreshing. I guess the moral of this article is to make sure to be self-crytical and don’t settle for a minimum effort. Keep in mind as well that if changes to the entertainment department need to be made, it’s often because the product wasn’t good enough and that’s something we musicians have to take some responsibility for. If you make yourself an asset to the entertainment department by providing entertainment that’s always appreciated by passengers, it’s very likely the company would want to hang on to your services.

If we sound boring and uninspiring, we have to accept changes when they hit, as painful as it may be.

We are currently looking to add to our roster DJs with percussionists for cruise ship entertainment. We’d need to see video of your performances with bios and photos.

You can contact us at: info@oceanbound.com

Cash Cash Band

There are still openings for good 4 and 5-piece cover bands in April.

To apply, you’ll have to submit the following:

1. Video of 10-12 cover songs
2. Full repertoire list
3. Band bio
4. Photos

We prefer bands with native English speakers.

Not much time left to get new bands ready, so apply soon.

Contact us at info@oceanbound.com

Photo credit: Tyello / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

We are in need of saxophone players with excellent sight-reading skills that can double on flute and clarinet.

Contact us at info@oceanbound.com

We are currently looking for a pianist/keyboard player to join a band of ours. Ideally, the candidate would be from Australia and have good knowledge of ballroom dance music as well as top 40 and jazz standards.

Contact us at info@oceanbound.com

Photo credit: + Rainbow + / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

On our “jobs & auditions” page we list the type of entertainers we need year-round. At the very moment though we have a more urgent need for the following:

- Piano Vocalists
- Guitar Vocalists (acoustic only, no sequences)
- Male Vocalists to front cover bands

Call or email us with questions.

Email: info@oceanbound.com
Phone: 450-714-0964