Showband Piano

First of all my spell checker always suggests a remedy for the single word Showband. Whereas the cruise industry uses this term to describe two different musical entities on its ships, it must be an improper noun. Show Band. It took me about three years to figure out what the term really means. When I first read it on a Carnival website promoting musician employment, I thought it looked silly. Pictures of the Showband looked silly, like a band that uses schtick rather than good musicianship. They were wearing pink, had Vegas style lights, and otherwise looked like a lounge lizard act. Yuck. Showband could, as in my case, depict a band that puts on a show. Little did I know the real meaning of the word is self explanatory. Showband is a word that describes the musical group that plays for the shows. They are like a pit orchestra that accompanies the production singers and dancers in the cruise industry's musical entertainment shows. After working for three different lines, I have found the shows vary greatly from ship to ship. On Princess the shows were numerous. Not only were there FOUR production shows that got performed regularly, there were also production singer cabarets and fly on entertainers. We played a lot in the band. It got usual to have a noon rehearsal every day in preparation for the show that was to follow that night. With no day off, ever, that kind of schedule can begin to wear on you. It is rare that piano parts are written legibly enough to be able to sight read them. Since the beginning this has been the case. The copy work for the Showband is the worst I have ever seen. Not to be negative, but if you indeed are expected to sight read parts quickly with little study and rehearsal time, then the parts must be written clearly. What does clearly mean? In terms of music notation, three years worth of doctoral course work in music composition suffices me to say. I learned eventually when you write music, the whole point is to try to make it a pleasing experience for your performers. Getting performances of pieces is difficult enough in the professional realm. Think of the orchestra circuit. When I graduated with a Masters degree in commercial music, there was a posting on the job notice board that said your chances of getting a conducting job was about half of one percent. Not much prospect for gainful employment there. Imagine trying to get an orchestra piece played. Who provides the time and money for a professional orchestra to rehearse and play your piece? It is a long road to Tipporary.... as the song goes. This road is similar to the road to success in commercial music. There is no tried and true method of achieving success in the music field. Pundits have recommended driving your shoes to New York or LA, camping there, and working for free to spread your cheer. Who does that anymore? After nine years of college I can think of nothing I would rather not do. How does one become a film composer? For some reason like cruise ship jobs, people have a notion about this. There is some kind of jive or hype involved. Why is this? It must be because there are billions of dollars involved in the music industry. All one has to do is look at ASCAP's annual newsletter that has their surveyed revenues listed. The first time I read it, I had to do a double take to remember the zeros had been left off to save space. ASCAP used to be the major organization that surveyed radio, television, and restaurants to collect royalties for musicians and composers. Those people in the know knew this was the way to make a living in the biz. How many jingles did it take? How many hit records. It seems that about five years is normal for a musician to live off of a hit record. Then they run out of money, unless you are OJ. If you read his portfolio during his murder trial, you saw a wise investment of monies. I don't know who his financial advisor was, but sign me up. You must invest you money to sustain it. I have written a handful of jingles and TV themes, and one day I think they will be discovered and used, after I am dead, posthumously. Mozart was published posthumously. So was Beethoven. People find unfinished works after they are dead and finish them themselves. They find previously unpublished works. As in the case of Miles Davis's son and nephew, they have found vaults of his old music where they just let the tapes run. Instinctively I have always somehow known that I would never make money from music, but it didn't stop me from creating it. It is what I enjoy doing, and I am good at it. I have a catalog of CD projects and written music that are better than most, but at age 43 hawking them from the trunk of an El Camino is not in my agenda. I want to be a success. I would like to have some of my music heard, but with the Capitalist economic system in the US, I have never felt it would happen. Somehow my instincts have told me, because I don't really believe in this system. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is what I see. Now the United States is falling apart. On top of that our market is not really free. It is called a free market, and that definition does apply in some ways. The free market is an example of our current government. There is an ideal of that system, and there is reality. The reality is the rich come and take what they want. They sneer at you, they intimidate you, and they make you think they deserve what they are taking. It has nothing to do with knowledge, wisdom, or hard work. Our government and our country can function, but our fundamental philosophy has been defamed. The intents of the founding fathers have been replaced with an agenda of another regime, the one that is in power at the moment. As the American people have experienced, it has nothing to do with us. With gas prices at $3.00 a gallon, oil reserves mysteriously appearing and disappearing, and weapons of mass destruction doing the same thing our system is not ours anymore. Many say the American people deserve it, because over half of us did not vote for the candidates they believed were right for the job. On top of that there was this funny business at the polls in sunny la Florida, Jeb Bush's home state. Later it emerged that another foreign business was selling us voting machines and tallying the votes in our national elections. Can it get any worse? After a while you just give up, because the shite is too deep to even care about. Back to music notation. Music notation can be compared to our laws. It is meant to take care of the musician. It is meant to guide the musician in a clear and meaningful way in the actualization of a piece of music. It is not meant to confuse the player. It is not meant to elevate itself for selfish gain. It is not meant to inhibit or oppress the musician. It simply is a guide for a good performance of what hopes to be art. This is the way we should look at our laws. They should not be made in some hypothetical chamber by hypocritical icons. They should be made to protect and serve the American people about real things. The problem is in the last few years everyone has lost sight of what is real. Democrats and Republicans have drifted to such extreme positions no one would even know they are still human beings. What do human beings do? They work. They would like to have adequate work, so they can provide for their families and themselves. They would like to have a pleasant work environment. They would like to have benefits from work such as health care. Should the burden of retirement and health care be placed on a private business. I think not. Socialized medicine is the only answer. This task becomes, how will our federal government invent a system that disassembles a private system that makes the rich rich? This is the reason Hillary did not succeed in her quest for national health care coverage. The idea is right, but you need a methodic plan, a newly-devised constitution for this new system. This issue is exactly what I wrote about earlier. Our leaders must possess this ability of new thought. Only to follow the laws in existence is to let our country stagnate. How are we to evolve as a country if our leaders can not do this? This is why the conservative right wing faction must be relieved of their power to allow a new breath of air, an air of hope for the future. Our system is failing. For things to change there must be a philosophy iin place of what Americans want and need. Whether it be clean air, clean water, a safe homeland, ample employment, culture, or safe religion, there used to be an American Dream.