Comments on: Dealing With a Difficult Music Director

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:53:06 +0000

An interesting blog, luckily the MD’s on my ships were not too bad. It is always nerve-racking going playing on a new ship as you are always worried about being the weakest link… these MD’s have no man-management if they are constantly laying into the musicians if they fuck up.. everyone fuck’s up once – the more pressure you lay onto yourself the more prone you are to it.

I once had a visiting artist who would claim I (pianist) or the bass player were dragging throughout his numbers… he would click his fingers during the gig to make us push.

One time we were playing to one of his click tracks and he must have forgot we were playing to click and tried to click his fingers to make us push because we he thought we were dragging!! That proved to me there and then he had no sense of pulse :)

By: TC

TC — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:57:37 +0000

So much bitching and moaning guys! There is another possibility here. If the MD is laying into you and telling you at every opportunity that your playing sucks – maybe it does! Have you heard the expression ‘walk a mile in the other mans shoes’? If the MD is giving you grief its a racing certainty that he/she is getting some from higher up the food chain. The MD is responsible for everything that happens musically speaking – you are responsible only for yourself. I have never worked on cruise ships but I am hoping to in the near future. I am in my 60′s and have worked more crap gigs than I care to remember for the last 50 years. My blueprint for survival on ships will be as its always been:
I’ll be wherever I’m told to be on the ship, at whatever time I’m told to be there, dressed as I’m told to be dressed and ready to play whatever it is that my employer is paying me for. That’s it. That’s what being a pro musician is about. If I do all that and its not good enough for some prick MD on a power trip that’s his/her problem. Getting in step with the rules and regs and putting up with day to day crap is the only way to survive IMHO.

By: Festus

Festus — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:43:29 +0000

It helps if you are an alcoholic…if you have a high creep factor for chicks….and are gay and sleeping with the Cruise Director….!

By: Andrew Wilmin

Andrew Wilmin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 02:24:08 +0000

Listen. Here’s how you deal with an abuse MD. Look at your ship rules/manual. It says that you can not be verbally abused. Point this out to the MD. If he/she continues then tape record the abuse. Then ask for a meeting with the CD. Usually the CD will do the right thing and put a stop to this. Okay if the CD doesn’t, then take you documented abuse case to the captain or at least threaten to. Good luck.

By: Eric Bierke

Eric Bierke — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:55:51 +0000

Ghostwriter, thanks for your great story, thoughts and views about being a bass player on the ships. I’ve worked seven different ships for four different companies, so I have plenty of stories to tell. Our MD’s were always the piano players for the orchestras; they would also end up playing the small band sail always and Captains Cocktails as well, so we built up a strong relationship as team players on our cruises. When I worked on Sitmar Cruises (dating myself a little?), it turns out the MD was gay, and he thought because of my involvement and willingness to help out, that I liked him. Once he found out that I liked the women, he got mad and broken hearted at me, so that made for difficult times for the remainder of the contract. You couldn’t even talk to this guy without him blowing up at you. He was replaced eventually after a a month or so.

You are right about the abilities of your fellow musicians, it seems the contractors just need to fill the chairs onstage and cross their fingers that everyone gets along and there will be no problems for the duration of the contract. What can you do, you have to all make it work as a team, you do sleep together, eat together, hang out in port together, party together, and these really are some of the best times of your life traveling and meeting people from all over the world.

Unfortunately the bass player getting the blame for everything is not just limited to the ships, it happens everywhere, especially in orchestra pits. I had been working with one MD doing community theater work for about fours years just up until maybe a year and a half ago. Every single show this guy would blame me for hitting wrongs notes or overplaying, or screwing around, yet he’s the one who would make backup tracks (strings, organ, extra percussion, etc…) on his computer that would have wrong notes in them, because the bad notes would always happen at the same place every time during the shows… guess who repeatedly got the blame? Uh huh. Plus he was the biggest screw off when he was MDing and playing drums, just don’t you do it first. And when the electric keyboard player would hit a wrong note, yours truly would get the evil eye. One day I just stopped playing when the keyboardist kept screwing up and raised my hands so MD could see that it wasn’t me. He looked so puzzled as what to do, because Mr. Keyboardist was one of his long time best friend kind of guys. I went home happy that night. On the next gig two months later he admitted that he was getting confused on the sound from my bass and the keyboard, so he told me to back all the bottom off my bass. Yeah. It really does get nerve racking sometimes, that’s when the mistakes happen and then you truly are the one to blame. Just be careful.

Cruise ships are just a gig, the music will be with all of us for the rest of our lives. In one ear and out the other I say. Sometimes you do have to stand up for yourself and throw it back in their faces. It’s all about them having just that little bit of control over other people in their lives, the power trip mentality. And that’s life!

Happy sailing and enjoy your cruise.

Eric

By: rimshot

rimshot — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:40:44 +0000

I too experienced a difficult music director. Got the “‘firing thing “, “you suck”, “your timing is off”, “you’re dragging”, you’re rushing”, “the industry shouldn’t waste any more money on you”, blah,blah,blah………….. Frankly, I feel this kind of treatment constitutes verbal abuse. Why isn’t there some kind of system in place to address this. It sounds like it is an all too common experience among band members. Why aren’t we able to evaluate their performance as a band leader like they do us? They need to be held accountable for their behavior.

By: Stikgroov

Stikgroov — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:33:42 +0000

Before I start, I’m a drummer who has recently moved close to Nashville, and thinking about getting a cruise gig, and I love this site!

But this article reminds me of a GREAT bass player in Louisville talking about his experience touring with the late great Buddy Rich big band for 8 months, a couple years before Buddy Rich’s death. The bass player said that at the rehearsals Buddy would yell at him for the bass being waaaay too loud, so my friend would turn the volume down. Then a little later, Buddy would yell at him for being too soft, and act mad about it. So my friend would turn it back up. This would continue indefinitely, until my friend finally figured out that he could just get his rig set up to where HE thought it sounded great, and so whenever Buddy yelled at him about his tone or volume, my friend would go over to the amp, act like he is adjusting knobs without actually touching anything, walk back over to his bass and play. Buddy wouldn’t say anything about it the rest of the night.

true story.

you can’t let that kind of stuff get you down, i guess…

By: Zach

Zach — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:22:49 +0000

Dude this blog really took me back to my ship time as a bass player. I just wanted to remind everyone of one simple fact about playing a ship gig.

IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG IT’S ALWAYS THE BASS PLAYERS FAULT.

In my experience on 7 ships that has held true for every gig. Yes I’m good and competent player but a lot of things can go wrong in the rhythm section. Horn players can drop the melody or the form, the drummer can play the wrong tempo, style or song, the guitar player can be in outer space playing with his effects pedals and the piano player could be so drunk he can’t even stay seated on his piano bench. All real life situations that I got blamed for. Don’t worry there is nothing you can do that is right. If you try and save the tune from crashing it’s still your fault when it does.

MD’s have a hard on for bass players. We are typically blamed for every mistake the band makes. And we are never ever as good as Johnny somebody that the bandleader used to work with. I don’t have any good advice for dealing with it. Telling the bandleader to fuck off helps in some situations. Believe it or not. Other times just grin and bear it. You can always gauge how good your playing is by whether or not the other musicians hang out with you at the bar. Seriously!