dand666

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1465147044' post='3065596']
Kiwi. Absolutely. It really isn't for everyone.

And I'm not even a full time musician yet. I'm just in the scary part. Maybe it's all scary part. Oh. That's the really scary part.
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Dude, once you got regular work in its the easiest and best job in the world.

After 4/5 years Im leaving my 'pro' days behind me. Only due to a woman. It took a woman to drag me off the cruise ships and back in the real world. Not going to lie, im going to miss it loads but time to move on I think.

Can't maintain a relationship if Im working overseas 10 months of the year unfortunately.

Keep at it dude, there is so much work out there its nuts. I was fully booked for 4 years, and had another year in advance booked up. Keep perservering and you'll be fine.

Get on an agency, before I was on ships our band was doing 2 weddings a week. Fri and Sat, earning at least £250 each gig.

Alive Network got us a sh*t ton of work.

Im looking forward to writing and performing my own stuff. The closest I get to that is Jazz, but it's just not enough for me.

Been playing on ships now for around 3/4 years and starting to get bored playing other peoples songs. It's not the basslines, I enjoy them and they seem to be different each night for me it's just something else and I cant describe it. Maybe I'm getting a little bored. I have a lot of fun playing jazz as i'm pushing myself as a player, learning new things etc.

I'm thinking that is time to give up music full time, go back to playing part time, maybe do a Jazz degree or something. I don't want to get bored of playing thats not what music is about for me. I've been lucky to do it for this long so maybe it's time to do something different.

Let me know how you get on with the 10's. I have some molded 17's and I just can't get used to them.

Jack Bruce!


Anyways now SOLD :-)

Me and a friend are just starting to write a prog album. Can't wait.

Great quality cable, as seen here:

http://bassic-bits.co.uk/ -Under bass speaker cables at the end. Speak on connectors.

Never used, sold my Ampeg before I could bridge it!

£13 inc Delivery.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1462996271' post='3047738']
This is kind of what I'm leaning towards.

It's a skill as bass players we should all have and really shouldn't be a huge ask.

Personally when I'm bored I'll sit in front of YouTube for an hour and just play along to whatever comes up. Most songs are under my fingers by the end of the first chorus.

If anyone has done a few jam sessions or depped for a function band on the fly this should be second nature to them.

I can't understand the hardship or reluctance to learn a few tunes.
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I love it. Im a self taught bassist. Never had a single lesson in my life, yet I've managed to have a rep of over 400 songs, can sight read, getting pretty bad ass on my theory and now a full time professional player.

All of this because I sat down and learnt songs. The 400+ songs I learnt started from when I was around 22/23. 27 now.

You start picking up patterns in music, certain genres you just know whats chord is coming next, I learnt so much from learning techniques and skills from my favourite artists.

I'm just starting jazz, woah, its an experience!

[quote name='funkypenguin' timestamp='1462986022' post='3047616']
The current workload for Carnival Cruise Line bands is that we have 3 weeks in rehearsals with the band to put 180 plus songs together. I received the setlists last night so I have 2 weeks as of today to transcribe and learn the 90 of these that i've not played before before i leave on the 25th to join the band.
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Dude, you'll use up them 180 songs in no time. I'll am for 300 so you don't drive yourself insane playing the same songs over and over again.

Try doing 14 day cruises 4 sets a night and not get sick of the same songs lol

1. Go to your local supermarket and buy 6 pack of Grolsch
2. Drink said beers and remove red washer
3. Use on every bass you have
4. ????????
5. Profit

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1462816006' post='3045950']
Understandable, a cruise contract makes a huge differences and a good reason to invest your time in learning that many songs.

Blue
[/quote]

That was just the start of it >.<

Had to learn over 100 songs in around a month just after we secured our first cruise contract.

That took it out of me!

Been listening to their new album, Im liking it. Fits somewhere between Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief me thinks.

That's a bargain for people who love 4x10's. I've just moved onto the Lightweight cabs otherwise I would've snapped this up.

Damn, if only I had the cash :-(

bumpmpmp

Are these bluetooth? Im assuming not?

For sale is my Longhorn. Just a killer killer sound and the tone you can get from these are incredible.

So light, so small and so much fun to play. Weird colour, and its the 90's Korean version, I prefer them to the newer ones.

Prefer collection, as I hate sending guitars! Based in Bognor Regis, but can travel along the South Coast if needed or up to London.

Be like this baddass:

Ok Computer has to go down as one of the greatest albums ever made. It's certainly up there.

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1462375642' post='3042515']
Mark - you and DAND666 need to talk, it seems!
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Although they only except 5 piece bands. Female led as well!

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1462276321' post='3041624']
Again, all sounds very interesting. I am very much taking notes. Question. Would the ferries be a good place to start while building things up to hit the real cruise ships when you're ready or are they to be completely avoided?
[/quote]
^
Ivan theres lots of ferry work left if you know the right contacts. I know 1 particular company who are in desperate need of bands.

Ferries are fine. I worked on one for in total around 4 months. Easy gig as it's perfect for new bands starting out as the same people are only going to see you for around 2 nights. So thats only around 6/8 sets of music you will need to play without repeating tracks. Easy peasy. Good way to get your rep up and get tight for when you would like to get on the bigger ships.

Great way to save for a couple of months too.

Awesome stuff man.

[quote name='ivansc' timestamp='1462096654' post='3040170']
Be careful on the cruise ship gigs though - although it is pretty much 100% union, there are some odd little side things.
A friend plays on the ferries between mainland france and the various islands like Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, etc.

Because they are actually employed by a French cruise line, they only get paid for the days they work and are on unemployment benefit the rest of the time.
Not very glamorous, especially since the actual pay is pretty dire, too.
Not all aquatic gigs are that great!
[/quote]

Need to get off the ferries and get on with anyone under the Carnival umbrella. They treat musicians really well. Over the past 2 years I've had no problem.

[quote name='markmcclelland' timestamp='1461931176' post='3038851']
Hey mate

Yes I have. Thanks a lot for the thought. I did apply a few years ago and was sent an online audition to do. They asked me to do the video record thing of playing along to three covers of my choice out of about 20 they gave me. I also had to record a minute of anything I wanted - impress us, they said. This was all on a two day deadline.

My three songs were absolutely fine and I recorded the best piece of playing I've ever laid down for their freestyle bit but never heard back from them. Oh well. I guess you just don't know what they're looking for. Maybe I'm on their file.

Here's the freestyle bit. A mad intro then just settling back and freeflow jamming for the rest of it. Maybe if I'd done the whole video in the same style as the first ten seconds they might have been a bit more impressed but I wanted to show them I could just lay it down. Like I said, you just don't know what they're looking for.

[url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6yrhkl9-LM"]https://www.youtube....h?v=l6yrhkl9-LM[/url]

Of course I'm well able to do the cover band stuff and there is some work on ships for that, which is what my audition was all about. Most jobs, and the higher paid jobs, require reading. I started learning from pretty much scratch a year ago and am now on Stuart Clayton's advanced book. I'd say that makes me a lower intermediate to intermediate reader. So that's something I might go for, but again, a long way off.

Diary spoiler. I have a project now - acoustic duo with acoustic guitar, bass and two vocals - and we've talked about the possibility of offering it to ships. But I had a look into it and we have a long long way to go before we could do that. Most ships ask that you have a repertoire of around 300 songs. We're currently hovering around the 50 mark and add every week but you could see it will still take a while.
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If you get your reading and Jazz up to a high standards I know lots of contacts for you to get into the cruise industry when needed.

Believe it or not, the party bands onboard (regular covers) get paid more than the orchestra musicians. I always felt bad about that, but we usually work a lot more. And we have to always 'put on a show', where as the orchestra can sit down, read and do their thing.

If you get yourself into a cover band, record a promo vid, does not need to be great quality, and you'll be fine. You can get away with 200 songs, we did for a few months. But you will need a wide range of songs for the theme nights.

If you ever need any info please don't hesitate to ask.

Mark, have you ever thought of working on ships?