Shaping Up

Up until now I’ve been treating this blog as a catharsis of sorts. I tend to only have a drive to write about my life when I’m feeling negatively. Lately, it’s been a bit more apparent to me that I’m just trying to be negative to write something, hence the last post which was essentially a free write of me grasping for things to complain about. So, because of this, I’ve painted a pretty bleak picture of my life on the ship. Even when I was talking about things that I enjoyed, there was always a pessimistic slant to it. It hasn’t been all black clouds and trolls though, so I wanted to use this post to maybe paint a more positive picture of what’s going on here.

This past week has been a huge improvement for me socially. It’s funny, once I found a few people I connected with, others are just more drawn to me. I think a lot of it has to do with the newer musicians in the band, I just found it easier to click with them, and then through them I have branched out. Whatever it is, I feel a bit better about being in this place now. I just feel more upbeat and have actually been enjoying parts of being here. Besides the social improvement, I think I’m generally in a less miserable place. I guess people pick up on that type of thing.

I have been going to the bar a bit more. It’s still a pretty unpleasant place and I don’t like it, but it seems to be the only real place to socialize that the crew has on the ship. The past few times have been ok, I’ve went with a group of the musicians that I’m starting to get closer with, which eases the awkwardness of being there.

In the weeks preceding this present one, I had really checked out of what I was doing. Sure I was doing a decent job, but I just wasn’t there when I was playing. It was hard for me to get invested in the songs because they weren’t my thing or whatever other excuse I was giving myself at the time. Now that I am more comfortable, I have been getting into the music a bit more. I’ve moved away from the mechanical playing I was doing and towards a more groove-centric style. Granted, I’ve never really been about grooving, I think in general the groove has been done to death, and if I could be playing any kind of music I wanted to, it would not be just a 4/4 dance tune. However, the style of music they have me playing on the ship demands a heavy groove, so I play one. The new bassist has only been here for a week, and he commented to me that he has seen a large improvement in my groove in only the week he’s been here, which is nice to hear.

However, this past week was not without its negatives. There has been escalating tension in the entertainment department over the volume of the band. This all came to a head a few nights ago when the cruise director sat in the sound booth for a production show. He thought parts of the band were too loud, so he talked the sound guy about it, who then talked to P and that sparked some drama between the two of them. On top of that, the lead vocalist recently started attending the production supervisor meetings, and he wanted more volume in the singers’ earpieces. Unfortunately, the volume is already as high as it will go without feeding back with the band. So, obviously, the solution that was proposed was to make the band play softer. The dance captain backed him up, saying that the dancers are used to playing with the click track, not the band, so the quieter the band is the better. The silly thing about this is that I play MUCH softer than the past drummer did and the new bassist plays much quieter than the older one. So, the question the band asked when we were confronted with this was “Why is this suddenly a problem now? We’ve been playing the show the same for the past four months…”

So, P had us do a trail run of the show at a very quiet volume. I played with acoustic sticks, the horns turned their mics off and all the amped instruments turned way down. The performance had no energy at all, and the whole band was kind of upset about it. After that, we played an emotionally charged dance set and brought down the house. We did the same “fake” playing for the next few production shows. This caused the cruise director to back down on what he said about us being too loud, so P and the sound guy had a chat and things were resolved. Then P got the band together and came clean about what was going on in the department; he is frustrated because the other departments within entertainment are trying to micromanage the musicians. I think him talking to us unified the band. When I first got here, there was a lot of unresolved tension. Everyone was kind of in a dark place and they all blamed P for what was going on. Now, things seem to be less tension-ridden, which probably has something to do with my newfound social success.

It’s funny; I don’t really have much of desire to write when I’m feeling good about things. I think I draw a lot of my creative energy from depression and negativity. To me, this post lacks the emotional umph that the past few have had. Either way, I can’t complain about life here right now, it’s actually looking up. Unfortunately, I just received a job offer that is going to throw a wrench in things. I need a few days to mull over what to do. I will probably write about this whole decision soon.

Until Then!