Accept a Cruise Musician Job or Finish Music School?

I received an email this week from a concerned parent of a Berklee student:

My son is a junior at Berklee and is considering taking a job for 6 months on a well known cruise line. He is on course to graduate on time and we would like him to do so. He will need to skip a semester to do this gig. We feel that he should finish school then pursue whatever he wants to – after all it’s his life not ours. Do you have any thoughts about this?

Thanks for writing, I’m always glad to hear from people that have visited the website.

I think it all depends on why your son wants to take the job. If your son is interested in taking this job as a kind of musical internship, where he could spend some time working full-time as a musician and then come back to school with a better focus on what skills he needed to improve – if this is the case – then I think this could be a good idea for him. If, on the other hand, he feels that he’s landed a good gig, so why bother staying in school?, I would strongly discourage him from taking the job. A finished degree from Berklee will be much more valuable on a resume than a few years on a cruise ship.

I learned a lot of skills while working on a cruise ship that are very hard to come by and very useful in the real world. Very rarely do you find a music job that employs you everyday and requires you to play a variety of music. It builds sight-reading, professionalism, and most importantly, gives you a quantity of experience that would take years to gather in the real world.

On the other hand, I would not always characterize this as a long-term job. Most musicians last 6 months to 2 years, and then move on to find something better. There are certain aspects of the gig (low pay, tight quarters, military-like regulations) that create what you might call a “short wick” for the job. As in, the candle doesn’t burn long.

Also, it is my experience that the connections you make playing music at sea do not translate into music jobs on land. While I do believe my success in music has been helped by the experience I acquired on ships, I don’t think that is it because of it. I don’t mean to imply that this isn’t a good gig, I only mean to illustrate that a cruise ship job is usually not a career, but rather, it is usually part of a career. Graduating from music school is also part of a career.

Also, there is no rush, and I hope your son doesn’t feel pressured by the cruise line or talent agency. Cruise ship jobs are plentiful and easy to get, especially for Berklee grads, so if he didn’t take this gig, he would easily find another one any time he’d like to. For example, if they are so eager to hire a Berklee student, imagine how eager they would be to hire a Berklee grad!

Sincerely,

Dave
Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Musician