How Many Songs Do We Play as Cruise Ship Musicians on the NCL Viva? — Transcript

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1. 0:00what's going on I'm David pagee this is
2. 0:01my wife Stephanie we are musicians and
3. 0:04we are currently contracted to perform
4. 0:06on board the Norwegian Viva and today we
5. 0:10are ported here in Barcelona Spain back
6. 0:13home we would perform up to 3 hours with
7. 0:16our band and in 3 hours we would need
8. 0:20approximately 40 songs maybe 50 in order
9. 0:24to get through a night the nice thing
10. 0:25about performing on land is that when
11. 0:27you perform the following day in a
12. 0:28different town or maybe the following
13. 0:31week you're not going to have the same
14. 0:33people there to see your show night
15. 0:35after night after night so we played
16. 0:37pretty much the same set of songs all
17. 0:40the time our last contract our ship was
18. 0:43making four and 5 day sailings and with
19. 0:46one night off every cruise that meant
20. 0:48that we were only performing three or
21. 0:50four nights uh about 45 minutes sets we
22. 0:54did 3 to 4 every night we needed about
23. 0:57150 songs to get through an entire
24. 1:00cruise without having to repeat too many
25. 1:02moving into ship life we had to really
26. 1:05expand our repertoire in order to go
27. 1:07from 50 to like 150 or 200 songs was a
28. 1:11big jump for us but we were able to do
29. 1:13the majority of that preparation before
30. 1:15we even got to the ship the itinerary
31. 1:17for the Viva is very different we are
32. 1:20sailing anywhere between 9 and 13 days
33. 1:24so with one night off there's 12 days of
34. 1:28music that we have to be prepared to
35. 1:29play coming out of one contract and
36. 1:32moving into another we didn't
37. 1:33necessarily have the time to expand our
38. 1:36repertoire up to 400 500 songs for us to
39. 1:40be able to read a chart and just play
40. 1:42the songs down would really be no big
41. 1:44deal that's that's pretty easy for us to
42. 1:46do but to be fully rehearsed with the
43. 1:48tracks and be memorized on all of our
44. 1:51lyrics we didn't have the time to get
45. 1:54completely performance ready on every
46. 1:57single song So as we're going through
47. 1:59this contract in the first couple of
48. 2:01sailings we're spending the majority of
49. 2:03our time off the ship downloading charts
50. 2:06downloading tracks and making sure that
51. 2:08we are uh adding all the songs that we
52. 2:11need to be adding to give the best
53. 2:13experience to the guests on the ship
54. 2:15most of the time when we get off the
55. 2:17ship we'll stop at a place like this
56. 2:19grab ourselves something to drink and
57. 2:21get free Wi-Fi in order to make sure
58. 2:23that we are able to download all the
59. 2:24charts we need and download any of the
60. 2:28the tracks that we need to pick up so
61. 2:30that we can be prepared for the shows
62. 2:31that we're putting on as entertainers on
63. 2:33a cruise ship there's an expectation
64. 2:35that each set is its own compact show
65. 2:38which means that throughout the course
66. 2:40of an 11-day sailing with one night off
67. 2:43we have 30 different shows to put on in
68. 2:46any one of our sets we might be playing
69. 2:48somewhere between two and five songs
70. 2:51that we don't have fully memorized yet
71. 2:54so we might be reading charts down we
72. 2:56might be performing with that track for
73. 2:58the first time
74. 3:01uh in every single show there's a little
75. 3:03bit of an element of surprise and a
76. 3:06little bit of an element of uh winging
77. 3:09it and kind of figuring it out as we
78. 3:13go cheers my
79. 3:23love
80. 3:25spectacular so as prepared as we are as
81. 3:29musicians
82. 3:30it's really difficult to be fully
83. 3:32prepared to perform any one of our 30
84. 3:35different shows completely from memory
85. 3:37having said all that performing at our
86. 3:39best and being able to deliver a
87. 3:42performance ready show is really
88. 3:43important to us and so we've been
89. 3:45working really hard in pretty much all
90. 3:48of our hours that we're not actually
91. 3:50performing on stage at rehearsing new
92. 3:52material and adding new songs when you
93. 3:55combine the sheer number of new songs
94. 3:57that we are performing on top of the the
95. 3:59fact that there there is an expectation
96. 4:01of perfection in musicianship um it puts
97. 4:05a lot of pressure on us you know if
98. 4:06someone were to get 10% of the answers
99. 4:09incorrect on a test they would still get
100. 4:11an A they would still be considered one
101. 4:13of the top performers in their class
102. 4:16however if I were to get 10% of the
103. 4:18notes incorrect in a guitar solo that
104. 4:21would be pretty much considered a
105. 4:23complete failure all right our food is
106. 4:25here so we're going to take a little
107. 4:27break and we're going to enjoy our
108. 4:30Papas and our
109. 4:32sangria and our paa coming soon that
110. 4:35food was really good but um getting back
111. 4:37to the video one of the things that we
112. 4:40found that's a little bit more
113. 4:41challenging about this contract over our
114. 4:44last contract with the longer sailings
115. 4:46is that we're still only getting one day
116. 4:49off per sailing so now that our cruises
117. 4:52are 11 Days 12 days uh out of those 12
118. 4:57days we're still only getting one day
119. 4:59day off so it's a lot of days in a row
120. 5:02of
121. 5:06singing Stephanie saw something shiny in
122. 5:08a
123. 5:10window but we found her
124. 5:15now at the sky for far too long I need
125. 5:20to change my
126. 5:22ways I've been going crazy as I dream my
127. 5:27life away I want
128. 5:30all the number of songs that you perform
129. 5:33throughout a sailing is going to vary
130. 5:35it's going to vary based on the type of
131. 5:37artists that you are it's going to vary
132. 5:39based on the type of sailings that you
133. 5:40do um but we found that there are a
134. 5:42bunch of people who like to come see us
135. 5:44perform every single night and so in
136. 5:47order to make sure that they're having
137. 5:48the best possible time we like to make
138. 5:50sure that we're prepared with enough
139. 5:52music that we're not repeating
140. 5:53unnecessary songs if someone requests
141. 5:56something obviously we'll play it if uh
142. 5:59if a song really means something to
143. 6:00someone they want to hear it again we're
144. 6:02happy to to repeat a song um but we want
145. 6:06to make sure that we're not just
146. 6:07repeating songs because we don't have
147. 6:09the repertoire to fill it having said
148. 6:11all that we're about to go on stage and
149. 6:13play a couple songs that we don't have
150. 6:16memorized yet so let's go do
151. 6:25[Music]
152. 6:28it
153. 6:30[Music]
154. 6:36[Applause]
155. 6:42[Music]
156. 6:45my me through
157. 6:49this
158. 6:51babyy
159. 6:54[Music]
160. 6:58I
161. 7:01[Applause]
162. 7:03[Music]
163. 7:06[Applause]
164. 7:07[Music]
165. 7:09[Applause]
166. 7:11[Music]
167. 7:14it's
168. 7:15[Applause]
169. 7:17good you just take
170. 7:25now the one hold the is
171. 7:30[Applause]
172. 7:32[Music]
173. 7:33[Applause]
174. 7:35[Music]
175. 7:37gone I'm the only one who walk acoss the
176. 7:41fire for
177. 7:44[Music]
178. 7:45[Applause]
179. 7:45[Music]
180. 7:46you
181. 7:49[Applause]
182. 7:53only it's only that makes you want the
183. 7:57demon T your
184. 8:01[Music]
185. 8:05[Applause]
186. 8:05[Music]
187. 8:14we're David Stephanie going take a short
188. 8:15break and then we'll be back to play
189. 8:18some tunes to rock
190. 8:21night