Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone.
Speaker: My name is Emily Jane Acree.
Speaker: And I'm Adam Price.
Speaker: And you're listening to the Relative Rhythms Podcast.
Speaker: This is the second episode in a three-part series on cruise ship work.
Speaker: In this episode, we are going to focus on the work of musicians on board.
Speaker: I'll talk about specific gear required, what a typical day looks like, average work hours, and everything else you may need to know to prepare you for a job as a cruise ship musician.
Speaker: Later in the episode, I'll also be talking with a good friend, colleague, and an incredible guitarist, Alessandre Pevato.
Speaker: I worked very closely with Ale on my last contract, and I invited him on to give you a little different perspective other than just my own.
Speaker: If you are a dancer, you'll want to listen to, if nothing else, to give you a greater understanding of the inner workings of the entertainment department on board and the work and the politics involved.
Speaker: And if you haven't listened to the first episode in this series yet, don't forget to do that as well.
Speaker: It contains the information you will need before you even get on board and the requirements for all crew.
Speaker: Please enjoy this episode about being a cruise ship musician.
Speaker: Music
Speaker: Hey everyone, welcome.
Speaker: Today we're going to be talking about the musician's gig on cruise ships.
Speaker: So if you want to play music on a cruise ship and you're an instrumentalist, this is for you.
Speaker: First, let's talk about how to get the gig in the first place.
Speaker: Dancers, it's a little different, but for us musicians, most of us audition through an agency.
Speaker: It is possible to audition direct to a company, to a cruise ship, but going through an agency, it gives you more options.
Speaker: So the agency has a list sent out to them of all the companies that they work for and the positions that they need.
Speaker: Every week or every other week, they'll get a whole list of, okay, well, Disney needs a saxophone player, princess needs a trumpet player, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: So it, uh, increases your chances of, of getting on a gig.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Now, the flip side of that is you do have to pay them a commission, but usually it's not very much.
Speaker: There are a couple of agencies that don't take a commission from the musicians.
Speaker: They work a deal with the
Speaker: cruise company where they're paid a fee to provide musicians for them.
Speaker: There's not many of the agencies who do that.
Speaker: Usually it's the musicians who pay the commission.
Speaker: But again, it's not a lot.
Speaker: I'm not going to name names, but a simple Google search or asking some friends, you know, posting on Facebook or something like that will give you a bunch of options for agencies.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then you'll just reach out to them.
Speaker: They'll probably make you go through an audition process, which isn't bad as long as you know all your keys and all your scales and can sight read decently.
Speaker: And once you make the cut, once the agency thinks you can handle the gig, they'll shop you around and eventually, hopefully, land you a gig on one of the cruise lines that they work with.
Speaker: In the first episode in the series, we talked a lot about visas and SDCWs, medicals, and all the stuff that every single crew needs to get on board.
Speaker: Don't worry about that until you get the gig.
Speaker: And then once you get the gig, then they'll tell you what you need to get paperwork-wise.
Speaker: no sense of you paying thousands of dollars for your STCWs if you don't get the gig, you know?
Speaker: So agencies and agents are kind of necessary evil, at least for us musicians.
Speaker: And you can get some good agents out there, but remember their goals are always different than your goals.
Speaker: Their goals is to get people on the ship for a contract, usually for as long as possible.
Speaker: Because the longer that they place someone on the cruise ship, that's less that they have to worry about for your replacement.
Speaker: So there's always a kind of a battle of sorts because...
Speaker: they want, once you get the gig, they want you on longer and as much as possible.
Speaker: So they don't have to worry about that position.
Speaker: And obviously you probably don't want that.
Speaker: As far as the money goes, there's not a lot that the agents can do to negotiate for you.
Speaker: Um, I should put a caveat here.
Speaker: We're talking about show band musicians.
Speaker: So, so crew musicians, um,
Speaker: You can be a guest entertainer musician, but that has a totally different agency and you're not working for a cruise line.
Speaker: You're working as a kind of subcontractor and the guest entertainers are what us crew musicians play for.
Speaker: So a guest entertainer will come on, say they're like Elvis impersonator or like they do Broadway songs.
Speaker: They'll come on and we'll be their backup band.
Speaker: So, yeah, we call them show band musicians on the ship.
Speaker: As far as pay goes, like I said before, there's not a lot that the agency can do for you.
Speaker: The pay scale is determined by each company.
Speaker: Every contract I've done has been in the just shy of three grand range per month.
Speaker: Uh, so like 27, 28, 29 a month that, that seems to be about average.
Speaker: Uh, you can certainly see lower than that and you can see a little bit higher.
Speaker: but that's generally about the mid-range.
Speaker: A typical show band is gonna be seven or eight pieces.
Speaker: Again, things change.
Speaker: Some companies have been cutting instrumentalists and making the band smaller and smaller.
Speaker: But in general, it's about six, seven, eight pieces.
Speaker: So most of the contracts I've done would be three horns.
Speaker: So trumpet, trombone, and woodwinds, and bass, drums, keys, guitar.
Speaker: That's generally what you'll see.
Speaker: You might see an extra woodwind player, so like two saxophones instead of just one.
Speaker: One of the lines, I forget which one, they cut...
Speaker: Most of the band and now it's just like a quartet quintet.
Speaker: So only one horn player, usually a saxophone player.
Speaker: So again, if you're working with an agency, they'll try and push you to a gig that that suits your instrument.
Speaker: So let's talk about what you need as a musician on board.
Speaker: We talked a little bit about what crew needs in general, and we talked about how small the cabins are, etc.
Speaker: But as far as gear goes for musicians...
Speaker: Obviously, you'll need your instrument.
Speaker: Piano player doesn't really need to bring anything, which is awesome.
Speaker: Drummer, you just really need your sticks and cymbals.
Speaker: They'll have the kit there for you.
Speaker: Bass player, you'll need to bring your electric bass.
Speaker: If they're having an upright bass, they'll usually have an upright bass on board.
Speaker: Guitar, you'll need to bring an electric guitar.
Speaker: Usually they'll have like an acoustic on board, but if you want to, if you have enough room, you can bring your acoustic as well.
Speaker: Trombone, you just need your trombone.
Speaker: Maybe a, maybe a cut mute or something like that.
Speaker: If you feel like it trumpet, you'll need your, your trumpet obviously.
Speaker: And your mutes.
Speaker: So like cut mute, harmon, plunger,
Speaker: And if you have the room, bring your flugelhorn as well.
Speaker: Saxophone players, we have the... We got the short end of the stick here.
Speaker: We need... If there's only one saxophone, you need your alto and your tenor and your flute and your clarinet.
Speaker: So you need to have really strong doubles.
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: You need to bring a lot of gear and it sucks.
Speaker: Especially trying to get to the ship, you're traveling with all these instruments.
Speaker: It's nearly impossible.
Speaker: I usually shove my clarinet and my flute in my checked bag.
Speaker: And I usually try and take my my saxes on as carry ons.
Speaker: Oftentimes it doesn't work.
Speaker: And so I'll try and force them to like gate check my saxophones.
Speaker: So I'll drop it off at the gate and then I'll pick it right back up at the gate as soon as I land for the layover or wherever I'm going.
Speaker: Again, not ideal.
Speaker: But there's only so much you can do.
Speaker: It goes without saying, no matter what instrument you're bringing, make sure you have it in a good, solid case, not like a little gig bag, just like an actual hard case.
Speaker: And I have insurance on all my instruments.
Speaker: It's not expensive.
Speaker: If you're traveling at all, no matter where you're going, if you're doing a chip or touring, I would suggest getting insurance on them because airlines are awful.
Speaker: Also, for saxophones, you might need a stand, like a sax stand, like a multi-instrument stand for all the instruments that you're going to be bringing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Other than your instruments and everything that goes along with that, like your reeds, if you need them, your mouthpieces, et cetera, et cetera, you're going to need some in-ear monitors.
Speaker: So I'm actually, I'm actually wearing mine right now to record this.
Speaker: I, um, I got these little sure, uh,
Speaker: These little Shure 215s.
Speaker: They're not expensive.
Speaker: I think mine, when I got them, like a hundred bucks and they've lasted me for years, so they're still going strong.
Speaker: You can go down a whole rabbit hole within your monitors and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on them if you want to.
Speaker: You don't really need that for this gig.
Speaker: you just need kind of the bare minimum.
Speaker: Obviously you want something better than just your like Apple earbuds because you want a nice seal to them and have like some, some better frequency response.
Speaker: But just, you know, the regular, these little shore, these little shore in-ears work really well.
Speaker: Depends on the ship, but a lot of ships are moving to digital charts these days.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: Having a iPad is really convenient.
Speaker: I would look into that.
Speaker: Getting an iPad.
Speaker: Something big enough that you can read the charts on the music stand so you don't have to squint and look really closely at.
Speaker: What else?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Earplugs.
Speaker: I've got these little, these eargasm earplugs.
Speaker: They come in a little, a nice little keychain holder so you can shove them in there.
Speaker: These are high fidelity earplugs so they've got a filter in there that lets through
Speaker: certain frequencies so it doesn't sound so everything doesn't sound muffled like those those silly foam ones these you can actually hear stuff and hear what's going on it just drops the db a significant amount they're not required obviously but uh i would i would suggest getting them and uh using them you're gonna be playing party band sets and uh
Speaker: They can get really loud.
Speaker: You know, the earplugs aren't comfortable, but they're certainly more comfortable than the ringing you're going to have in your ears for the next day or two.
Speaker: So, and as musicians, our ears are kind of important for our work.
Speaker: So we kind of want to keep them healthy and keep them safe.
Speaker: So I would definitely suggest looking into getting a pair of high fidelity earplugs.
Speaker: Your uniform.
Speaker: We talked a little bit about this in the first episode.
Speaker: Most positions get uniforms provided for them.
Speaker: Us musicians are different.
Speaker: We have to kind of provide our own.
Speaker: Every show you're going to need blacks.
Speaker: So black suit, black shirt, black shoes, black socks, black belt, black tie, just full blacks.
Speaker: Um, think that you're playing in a pit orchestra basically.
Speaker: So bring, bring a couple of black shirts, your black suit, maybe two pairs of black pants.
Speaker: So you can, you know, have something to wear when you send it to the dry cleaners or you have to go to laundry.
Speaker: You're going to want a white shirt as well.
Speaker: Maybe, maybe one or two.
Speaker: just in case they do like some kind of formal night attire to black tie usually and have a bow tie line around just in case.
Speaker: I think that's pretty much it for packing everything.
Speaker: I like to use a collapsible duffel bag.
Speaker: So they got these kind of big ones that they can expand out and then they can collapse when you're done when you're not using them.
Speaker: They got like these roller things on the back.
Speaker: You can look like Ross or wherever you can sometimes find them on a, on a great sale or maybe sometimes even at like Goodwill or something like that.
Speaker: they get beat up pretty good.
Speaker: So they only last a couple, couple of contracts, but the amount of room that you can save with that is, is huge because real estate is in short supply on the, on the ship.
Speaker: So, um, any extra inches you can, you can get that you're, you're not storing something big and bulky is, is a, is a plus.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that covers most of the gear stuff.
Speaker: If you have a phone, I mean, I'm assuming you have a cell phone.
Speaker: I would look into getting an international plan of sorts.
Speaker: I don't know what the plans are looking like now.
Speaker: I know I was grandfathered in T-Mobile used to have a pretty good international plan and I was grandfathered into that.
Speaker: Just to have...
Speaker: I mean, it's slow overseas, but just to have some kind of data so you can like get maps if you get lost, you know, um, out in port or something like that.
Speaker: Also a lot of international staff on ships and a lot of people communicate with WhatsApp.
Speaker: I know that's not really big in the States for some reason, but, uh,
Speaker: pretty much everywhere else in the world.
Speaker: That's a, that's a pretty big thing and it works really well for communicating with your, with your fellow crew members and your colleagues.
Speaker: I think that pretty much covers most of it.
Speaker: If you have questions about it, once you get the gig, I would, I would highly recommend finding out who your MD is and messaging them, emailing them and just asking them,
Speaker: If there's anything specific that you need to bring, just touching base.
Speaker: And if there's anything that's unique to the gig, they'll let you know.
Speaker: All right, let's talk about a typical day real quick.
Speaker: Generally speaking, there's going to be a rehearsal at some point in the day for the show at night.
Speaker: There's usually two shows in the evening, two hour-long shows, 45 minutes, hour, hour.
Speaker: And the rehearsal usually goes like twice that.
Speaker: Sometimes it goes crazy.
Speaker: Sometimes it goes really short.
Speaker: Like if you're playing a shorter cast show that everyone already knows, sometimes it goes really quick.
Speaker: If you have a guest entertainer come on board who's really insecure, sometimes it can get really long.
Speaker: But generally speaking, it doesn't.
Speaker: Usually it doesn't last more than like two hours rehearsal.
Speaker: And then the show is going to last around an hour and there's usually two shows.
Speaker: So I usually work like work,
Speaker: about five hours a day, actually like playing, you know, oftentimes like in between shows, you'd kind of just sit around and wait for the next show.
Speaker: And obviously you have to get there early to set up for the rehearsal and, uh,
Speaker: Sometimes it takes a long time to tear down all these things.
Speaker: And if you need to do like extra practice for any, any tricky spots that's on you, you have to do that yourself.
Speaker: So all of that is, is extra.
Speaker: But, uh, as far as like actual, like job description, it's usually around five, five hours a day.
Speaker: That's not including extra trainings or drills that happen.
Speaker: And that's required for all crew.
Speaker: So you need to do safety drills and that will usually happen when you're
Speaker: average about like once a week, maybe trainings.
Speaker: Uh, it depends.
Speaker: Sometimes they do a lot of training.
Speaker: Sometimes you're good for a couple of weeks without a training.
Speaker: So even that, even though that's not really in our job description, because we're a crew, we have to, we have to attend all those and, um, do all that stuff.
Speaker: Overall, it's not bad.
Speaker: The shows at night, the rehearsal is during the day at some point.
Speaker: Sometimes it's in the morning at like 10 or 11.
Speaker: Sometimes it's in the afternoon at like 4 or 5.
Speaker: But it's not terrible.
Speaker: You usually have time to get off the ship for at least a little bit, a couple hours here and there.
Speaker: Not enough time to like go crazy and like, you know, go to another town or whatever, but, uh, you know, enough to walk around, have a, have a coffee, have a beer, maybe even have lunch or something and then get back to the ship for rehearsal.
Speaker: So it's not bad.
Speaker: There are occasional extra duties in this ship I just got off.
Speaker: We had to do embark duties.
Speaker: So every embarkation, we had to like help guests get on the ship and like check them in and all that stuff, which is definitely a pain in the ass, but it is what it is.
Speaker: Some days there could be an extra show, like a pool set or like a party band set at night.
Speaker: But generally speaking, it's like five to six hours a day.
Speaker: And as far as days off goes, you don't really get any.
Speaker: This last contract, I was really lucky and I actually had a handful, but, um, there's been contracts before that I hadn't had a single day off.
Speaker: So don't count on any days off.
Speaker: It's usually just every day you got something, even if it's a lighter day, it's, you still have to do something.
Speaker: It's generally, generally the rule.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's pretty much it as far as work goes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's not a bad job.
Speaker: We talked about some of the sucky parts in the first episode.
Speaker: Those are the same for our job.
Speaker: And the only thing I would add maybe to that would be this job is not very musically gratifying.
Speaker: We're playing the same music every day.
Speaker: I learned a lot in my first contract.
Speaker: A lot.
Speaker: And I learned a lot in my second contracts.
Speaker: But after that, I didn't learn anything new.
Speaker: It's the same stuff.
Speaker: Even if it's a new person, like a new guest entertainer that I've never played with, it's the same music.
Speaker: I could guess their set list.
Speaker: You're going to be playing a lot of Hey Jude's and Dancing Queens.
Speaker: You know, all the hits.
Speaker: It's crazy how no one seems to get sick of these songs.
Speaker: Maybe it's just me.
Speaker: But yeah, the audience never seems to tire for some reason.
Speaker: I think the key is to have something that you can work on outside of your job.
Speaker: So like bring some piece that you, you've always wanted to learn, you know, and work on that.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: There's, uh, some new tunes that you really want to dig into, or if you want to try writing some tunes, something like that, just, uh, something musical that you can dig into.
Speaker: That's that has substance.
Speaker: Um, and that's more interesting than just playing the same thing every day.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: just so you have some kind of artistic outlet.
Speaker: It's, it's funny to say, you know, even though we're playing music every single day to say you don't have an artistic outlet when you're on, when you're on a ship, but, uh, it's kind of true in a weird way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just, uh, just try and get along with, with everyone.
Speaker: I've been pretty lucky.
Speaker: I did one contract with a really vibey band and one, if,
Speaker: If you have a band and they don't get along with each other, it makes the contract really hard and really long.
Speaker: So as long as, you know, you try your best to get along with everyone, you know, you just, uh, you play the Hey Jude's and the dancing Queens and you collect your paycheck and you put it all in the bank.
Speaker: And when the time you get home, you actually have a bank account to look at.
Speaker: So that's, uh, that's nice.
Speaker: And the steady, the steady paycheck is nice.
Speaker: Um, yeah, if you haven't listened to the first episode, the, uh, the intro to cruise ship work episode, uh, make sure you check that out.
Speaker: Cause I, I really fill out the rest of this, this job in that.
Speaker: And, um, I invited my good friend, Alessandra Pabato on, uh, to kind of give us his perspective.
Speaker: So you didn't have to listen to me talk about this the entire time.
Speaker: So stay tuned and we'll bring them right on.
Speaker: This is the Relative Rhythms podcast, and you're listening to our episode on being a cruise ship musician.
Speaker: If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: And if you'd like to support our work, you can join our Patreon where we catalog our full unedited episodes and share extra content, including unreleased music and videos.
Speaker: You can also check out our brand new store where you can get Relative Rhythms merch.
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Speaker: Go to RelativeRhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Speaker: And now please welcome to the podcast, Alessandra Pepato.
Speaker: All right, Ali, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: So before we get into it, can you tell me how you first started playing guitar?
Speaker: Like when did you pick it up?
Speaker: I started to study classical music.
Speaker: I'm seven years young.
Speaker: Seven years old.
Speaker: Seven years young.
Speaker: And they started to study for playing in the church.
Speaker: So before, before I sing this in the same time, I played like rhythmic instruments, Brazilian rhythmic instruments in the church.
Speaker: My father was a bass player.
Speaker: And my uncle played like an organ.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's not a harmon, but play.
Speaker: It's like a family instrument.
Speaker: Group in the third.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's not professional musicians.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But how I say it in English?
Speaker: Enthusiasts?
Speaker: Musicians?
Speaker: This is my musical environment.
Speaker: Since I was a little Alex, I always listen to
Speaker: so many songs.
Speaker: My father liked Raycon, like a big band, and the Brazilian group, Choro, Brazilian singers.
Speaker: And so my first memory about big bands is Raycon.
Speaker: It's more popular.
Speaker: big band in Brazil.
Speaker: I don't know this term, big band, but I listen to this kind of music.
Speaker: I play trombones, saxophones, horn satchel.
Speaker: I didn't know these terms, musical terms, but I listen when I was so, so, so, so young.
Speaker: So in this context,
Speaker: I started to study classical music by the... In Portuguese we say violão, but it's like acoustic guitar, no?
Speaker: Nylon, nylon acoustic guitar.
Speaker: The church, I started to play Brazilian rhythmic instruments, like a pandeiro, like shakes,
Speaker: So this is my start in the music.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And so when did you start playing professionally?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Professionally, I am 18 years old.
Speaker: My first band in Brazil is when I started to play as a professional.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: In a Catholic rock band.
Speaker: If I'm not wrong, the first rock Catholic album in Brazil is my band.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Like, it's very contemporary on a USA band, like it's named Petra.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So when I start to play professionally, I start to play in this band.
Speaker: I'm 18 years old.
Speaker: It's the first professional Catholic rock band in Brazil.
Speaker: Today you have a lot of this.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's more famous than the Saron.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's more famous.
Speaker: But in the beginning, this band was very important to history.
Speaker: History.
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: In Brazil, history in Brazil.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's not important history, but for all the world, it's not important history.
Speaker: But in Brazil, the Catholic music in this context is very important.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What was the name of your band?
Speaker: Cristo Atividade.
Speaker: I'm going to have to look it up now.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The first album is like 1990.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: Or 1991.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know yet.
Speaker: But it's the beginning of the 19s.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you already said you were touring around and making a lot of money doing this, doing a lot of gospel stuff.
Speaker: And you did a lot of stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A lot of recording.
Speaker: You were a big session musician in Brazil.
Speaker: Why did you start to why did you go to cruise ships?
Speaker: Why did you start playing on cruise ships?
Speaker: Oh, in the cruise ships.
Speaker: It's like a recent history.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I started to work in ships in 2023, less than two years ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I made my first contract.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I think I'm a lucid guy.
Speaker: My first... I have just one company, just one agent...
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Just one shift.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: I like this.
Speaker: So, for me, it was was and is a big challenge.
Speaker: Because first, this is language barrier.
Speaker: When I started was very difficult today.
Speaker: It's difficult.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I'm a... How can I say this?
Speaker: Easy person.
Speaker: Good humor.
Speaker: Humor sense.
Speaker: So, most of the time I speak very wrong.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I'm very cautious about this, but I can't say I don't care.
Speaker: But in Portuguese we say, for me it's okay.
Speaker: For me it's okay.
Speaker: I speak
Speaker: So I need to have good friends and have a lot of patience with me.
Speaker: And patience.
Speaker: This is very, very bad English.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: So... Oh, I forgot what you asked me.
Speaker: Well, you started Ships and you knew zero English, right?
Speaker: And now you're... Okay, I was telling you about this challenge.
Speaker: About the language.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In a so different culture...
Speaker: culture, so different, so different men of work, many ways of work, different boards, different systems.
Speaker: I think it's like an incredible experience for all the musicians.
Speaker: Work with different boards, different rules.
Speaker: different culture, you need to learn.
Speaker: And for me, I needed to learn, to work different countries, different systems.
Speaker: I think it's not so easy because in my country, I'm a musical producer.
Speaker: I give the orders.
Speaker: And now in the ship, I'm just a guitar player.
Speaker: I need to learn and receive this order.
Speaker: Ah, okay.
Speaker: You play wrong.
Speaker: Okay, but I... Oh, this art is a complete mess.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: We have no skills.
Speaker: We need to do it.
Speaker: And you know we have not too much time for doing it.
Speaker: It's a great life lesson for me.
Speaker: For Brazilians, I'm a Brazilian.
Speaker: For Brazilians, it's a good exchange.
Speaker: Good accent for us, so for Brazilians, for most of the Latin American musicians, it's good for the accent, it's so good for us.
Speaker: And I think this life lesson for me is so important there.
Speaker: and a good salary for us because of this extent.
Speaker: But for me it's a lot of loss and ease.
Speaker: It's a so good experience.
Speaker: I like this.
Speaker: I like this life.
Speaker: So I regret to not discover this life before.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Why did you first start the cruise ships?
Speaker: Why did you first start?
Speaker: You were already a successful musician in Brazil.
Speaker: It's a personal history.
Speaker: I got a divorce.
Speaker: after 20 years married.
Speaker: So when I got this divorce, I think I need to do something different.
Speaker: So I saw another musician's friend and one day I'm ignoring today, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And then I had the Instagram and I'm like, oh, today I'm Instagram.
Speaker: Oh, I like this.
Speaker: One day you...
Speaker: And another day you are in another country.
Speaker: So I need to try it.
Speaker: So I get information about this.
Speaker: So I think it's the more important reason
Speaker: after this important happened in my life, my personal life, I think that I need to try something different.
Speaker: So I think that now I have this opportunity to go out of my country to try something different.
Speaker: And from my surprise, I like this life.
Speaker: In the beginning, it was more difficult to me
Speaker: Today, it's less.
Speaker: I have less difficulties.
Speaker: But I think step by step, I win my challenge in those moments in my life.
Speaker: win little little challenge was very important for my for my soul yeah for my mind uh uh win step by step uh a little a little challenge day by day for me was so so good in the help my mind help my my soul
Speaker: I remember before my audition I got depression for two years
Speaker: And I remember playing like two or three times in one year.
Speaker: I remember before my audience, I didn't play two or three months.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Without taking the instrument.
Speaker: I was, I was, what?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Can I say it?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: In English, I was completely fucked.
Speaker: So, yes, mental, financial, emotional, absolutely die.
Speaker: So, for me, I think...
Speaker: I'm 100% sure that God helped me in this moment.
Speaker: It's like I got the, or God blessed me with one energy that I don't have.
Speaker: I have no energy.
Speaker: I think God helped me.
Speaker: Oh, give me a little energy for you.
Speaker: and I start this, I take this and because I remember until this moment I have no balls for nothing, internal mood for nothing, nothing.
Speaker: If you tell me in this time, oh, you need to learn English.
Speaker: I mean, sorry.
Speaker: No, I can't.
Speaker: I remember this in this time.
Speaker: Most of the word that I said is I can't.
Speaker: I have no mood.
Speaker: I can't.
Speaker: I'm completely dying.
Speaker: So after this, I'm 100% sure that God helped me in this time.
Speaker: Imagining that time when I imagine, oh, I can start to work out of Brazil in a different life.
Speaker: This image, I can imagine myself in this situation, it's like putting me in another position.
Speaker: I don't know if you make this another... Put me in different humor.
Speaker: I ask myself, can I do it?
Speaker: Maybe, yes.
Speaker: Because before, oh man...
Speaker: If you know me, hey Alex, let's play a... Oh man, sorry, I don't speak English.
Speaker: So today I know, I don't speak English, but I do it.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: So in those times, my condition in this time is so very, very bad, you know?
Speaker: So, this thing happened, win, win, a little challenge.
Speaker: When the agent told me, oh, Alex, okay, your audition is very good.
Speaker: I think, oh, you're super good.
Speaker: I remember day by day I was surprised about myself.
Speaker: I think, oh, I can do it again.
Speaker: So I think this is my context before my first contract.
Speaker: In my first contract, it was a big, how I say it in English,
Speaker: Not challenge, but I had a lot of surprises, good surprises and bad surprises.
Speaker: I had a lot of persons that had a lot of patience with me.
Speaker: I found persons that speak so slow with me and teach me something and correct me.
Speaker: But I found patient people, I found good people, I found very bad persons too on the ship.
Speaker: Yes, the ship is not a heaven, no.
Speaker: So I had to learn to live in different situations, different corporate situations.
Speaker: It's because it's not just about music.
Speaker: It's about relations, like professional relations.
Speaker: It's about different cultures, different ways, different persons, different humours.
Speaker: Because for Brazilians, it's always, oh, man, blah, blah, blah, to the hug.
Speaker: I remember one person, she looked at me, what?
Speaker: Why do you hug me?
Speaker: I remember she's from England.
Speaker: Why do you hug me?
Speaker: But she is very funny.
Speaker: It's my luxury.
Speaker: She was very funny.
Speaker: But step by step, I can't understand.
Speaker: No, I'm not in Brazil.
Speaker: I need to observe the behaviors and put me in a good place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when you first joined the ship, your first contract, you spoke zero English, yeah?
Speaker: Zero, yes.
Speaker: It's important to tell you.
Speaker: I always read a lot of books in English.
Speaker: It's like musical.
Speaker: I'm arranger and composer.
Speaker: So I studied English, composer or English or arrangers.
Speaker: So I read.
Speaker: You can read, yeah.
Speaker: I can read, but I never had to speak or have a short conversation.
Speaker: And for me, in the beginning, it's more difficult to understand them because some words are very similar for my ears.
Speaker: So today I can understand them better.
Speaker: not perfect.
Speaker: But for me, it was more difficult to understand and separate.
Speaker: Because you guys have a lot of expression when I have this conversation.
Speaker: For one guy or two guys, it's more easy.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: One table at the party, the guy is very excited.
Speaker: I can't understand.
Speaker: So, the return of the talk, yeah.
Speaker: When I started, I spoke zero.
Speaker: I remember two months when I was asleep.
Speaker: I have a headache.
Speaker: Every day, every holiday, I have a headache for two months.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But now you're fluent.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I think I am a very stupid or I am a persistent guy.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Or both.
Speaker: Always I have good It's like a musical perception
Speaker: When you play a lot of chords, I know what chord you play or the melody.
Speaker: Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker: I think it has helped me a lot on the ship.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Because sometimes I read the chart, maybe the font of the old... It's not a good chart, so... Because I'm a ranger, I know when a chart is good or...
Speaker: For me, when I studied, I learned to put more clean charts, more easy charts for sight reading.
Speaker: Sometimes we have good charts, and sometimes...
Speaker: Not so good, like confused retornellos, confused jumps.
Speaker: So, and...
Speaker: Inside this complex mess, I remember my musical perception, my ears, saved me a lot.
Speaker: So I'm not lost in the chart.
Speaker: But the chart is not clean.
Speaker: It's a little bit confused.
Speaker: But I listen and I understand...
Speaker: I think this is my strong point.
Speaker: Can I say this?
Speaker: It's a strong point.
Speaker: At least, oh, okay, I know.
Speaker: I understand this right now.
Speaker: So I think it's helped me a lot.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's...
Speaker: most of the Brazilian musicians, I think it's a common quality between Brazilian musicians.
Speaker: Because in the common gigs, they never play by charts, play by memory, and by, ah, okay, I know this world, I know...
Speaker: I recognize this form.
Speaker: So I think this is because I remember that I found guys of the East, Europe East.
Speaker: It's like a reading machine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I realized too about the perception or ears.
Speaker: It's not so strong too.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So I think that I have this musical perception of years helped me and put me in the palace.
Speaker: I'm not so good sight-ridden.
Speaker: So, the chords, the rhythm, okay, but if you have long solos, it's a traditional rite.
Speaker: It's a traditional rite.
Speaker: I need a little bit more time for ION.
Speaker: And then another guy, it's like a rhythm machine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I think it's...
Speaker: This is quality.
Speaker: I think it's helped me a lot when I started to work on the ship.
Speaker: Is there anything else that you would... any other wisdom that you want to impart to maybe a younger musician who wants to get into this work?
Speaker: I got you.
Speaker: So, Tuesday?
Speaker: Thursday, Tuesday?
Speaker: I was telling with my friend, this my friend h as a son, 20 years old.
Speaker: He's a musician too, and someone invited this guy for work and shift.
Speaker: So for me, it's very important and very excited to say it for my friend.
Speaker: I said, hey, man, if I had this opportunity in my life, I got it, I take it and just jump.
Speaker: It makes sense?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'd like to have this opportunity when I was more young.
Speaker: Because I play with different guys, I sing good songs, sometimes good songs.
Speaker: Sometimes it's normal.
Speaker: We have good songs and normal songs.
Speaker: Sometimes it's good songs and sometimes it's normal songs.
Speaker: But I think this depends, for me, it depends... In Portuguese we say, how you got it for you.
Speaker: If a challenge is good.
Speaker: If you got it, if, oh man, I need to play, it's a bad experience.
Speaker: If you got it like a bad way, I don't know if it makes sense.
Speaker: I don't know if I can explain myself completely.
Speaker: If you got it, if a good experience, oh, because for me, I'm very satisfied.
Speaker: I don't know if I can use this word.
Speaker: When I receive the shards for maybe 10 minutes before the hearth, and I play good.
Speaker: For me, I'm very happy with myself when I can't do it.
Speaker: So I think it depends on how you get this experience.
Speaker: I think it's for all the life.
Speaker: If you get the experience, if it's a good way, or if you're grateful for this experience, this is so good for you.
Speaker: If you take your job, oh man, I need to do it.
Speaker: I think in the ship, in the off-sea, in the park, depends on you.
Speaker: It's my experience.
Speaker: It's the way that I think about all of my life.
Speaker: I think, so, today, I think this is after this, my bad experience.
Speaker: Because before this...
Speaker: I remember, oh, no, I need to do it again.
Speaker: I know this, I know this, I know.
Speaker: So I think it depends.
Speaker: So you asked me about the young guys, young musicians, and take this experience in the shit ride.
Speaker: How do I say it in English?
Speaker: Just jump.
Speaker: just jump in this experience and be happy.
Speaker: Because if you're happy or no, I think it's more than 50% depends on you.
Speaker: That's not about that.
Speaker: So we know sometimes we have no good time, we have a bad relation, something happens, shit happens, you know?
Speaker: But I think it depends more on me than other things.
Speaker: So if I can reason this, I think it's a so good experience.
Speaker: It's a musical experience.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good for life.
Speaker: It's life experience is good.
Speaker: If you know how well I know to enjoy this experience, I can expect good things for me, for my soul, for my life, for my construction, for life construction.
Speaker: So I'd like to start years ago.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who's this?
Speaker: You've been listening to our second episode in our three-part series on cruise ship work and our conversation with Alexandre Pebato.
Speaker: You can follow Alexandre on the socials at Alexandre Boina.
Speaker: That's A-L-E-X-A-N-D-R-E-B-O-Y-N-A.
Speaker: And you can listen to his incredible guitar playing wherever you get your music.
Speaker: If you liked our conversation today, please follow and leave a rating or review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: If you'd like to support our work, you can join us at patreon.com slash relative rhythms, where you can gain access to all of our uncut episodes and extra content.
Speaker: Our theme song is For the Love of It by the Adam Price Group.
Speaker: Featuring Emily Jane Agri on foot percussion.
Speaker: Our mid-roll music was Nasenshi, and our outro music is Encontro das Aguas, both off of Alexandre's EP, Sweet Circuatu das Aguas.
Speaker: Don't forget to follow us on all the socials at Relative Rhythms and feel free to send us a message.
Speaker: Check out our merch on our website, relativerhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next episode.
