9/27/2012

I have been meaning to write since I got on the Zuiderdam in mid-August, so this post is long overdue. As some of you may know, I got a promotion to HalCats Band Leader for this contract. After two years of working on ships, I felt I was ready for something new and I was fortunate to be offered this promotion.

After two years of sitting around on the ship watching movies, then playing the gigs for the night, then sleeping for awhile, I needed something new. I looked on land for gigs, but the band leader gig on ships was the most appealing. Besides the pay raise and the very nice single cabin, I am enjoying the additional responsibilities I have been given.

As band leader, I am in charge of our six-piece band, which consists of a singer, guitar, bass, sax, drums and keyboard, which I cover. I make set lists for our daily theme nights in the Queen’s Lounge, do any conducting necessary on stage, count-off all tunes, and make sure the band sounds great. There are also other “business” responsibilities and random trainings, but I don’t let those bother me.

I got thrown a little blindly into this gig. I came on the ship to new books that we have to play out of. After being used to the same 300 songs for the last couple years, I was now thrown a new set of 400 tunes. Besides getting to know these new songs, many of the charts are filled with errors, so I spent a lot of time trying to find the errors before we played them. Fortunately, I have a very good band who have been good at keeping on their toes and going with me when we find mistakes in charts.

This ship is also one of the test ships for a brand new format they brought out in June. They are trying two HalCat bands instead of one. This makes our schedule much different than I’ve been used to, and as it is a new format, we are constantly making changes to see what works best. Fortunately, the other HalCats band leader and I get along great and have been working together to make this new format work well for everybody. The addition of a male singer to the other band has been working great. For some theme nights in the Queen’s Lounge, the band will use the male and female singer, which adds a lot to the performances.

While the other band has the male singer, I have the female singer and have been blessed with an amazing one who has a great voice, range, repertoire, and is always learning new tunes. I have a great guitarist who sings backup vocals to fill out our sound, an experienced sax player who is quite the entertainer, a very knowledgeable bass player, and a super solid drummer who is always there with me, especially when something doesn’t go as planned. Interestingly, I am the youngest member of my band, but this hasn’t been a problem.

The interesting part of HalCat bands on ships, and also one of the most frustrating things, is the constant switching out of band members. We are all booked separately, and thus don’t have the same length contracts. After going through three sax players in three weeks, the band I have had for the last three weeks is here together until we all disembark on November 30. This is a real blessing and makes my job so much easier. We are really gelling as a band now and get along great. I couldn’t ask for anything more.

This new gig has its stresses and a much bigger workload, but I couldn’t be happier. I was ready for more responsibilities and these additional responsibilities have energized me and made me a much more active and proactive person.

While the itinerary (7-day Alaska cruises followed by 11-day Panama Canal cruises), is pretty lame compared to the world cruises I have done in the past, I am just glad to have this new energy and as I have said, I couldn’t be much happier. And as we leave Alaska now and head for warmer Caribbean weather, I think everyone will be much happier here on the ship!

Well, that concludes my 1 1/2 month update. Thank you all for reading and for your constant support.

-Nathan

8/9/2012

As I get ready to embark on another cruise ship contract tomorrow, I have been reflecting on my first two years of cruising the world.

What started as a Google search for cruise ship musician jobs following my parent’s suggestion, has turned into a very enjoyable and ever changing two years of traveling the world and playing piano. I never dreamed of traveling the world playing piano on a cruise ship, but I am very glad that I have done this with my first two years out of college.

I have grown in many ways these last couple years. I have become a much better performer and enjoy it much more now. That’s what happens when you perform up to 5 hours a night, seven days a week, for a few months at a time.

I have become a much more versatile player. This job requires musicians to be able to play anything from country music to Lady Gaga to 50s music. As a piano player, I have to be even more versatile, by being assigned cocktail sets, playing a classical music set, playing in the jazz trio, or playing for a variety of guest entertainers and cast production shows.

I have become a better arranger. I have arranged a couple shows for performers that I’ve met on the ship. These projects have ranged from piano trio arrangements to a 13-piece arrangements complete with string quartet and horns. I have even done quick arrangements for string quartets to play in their nightly sets on the ship. This has helped me keep my composing and arranging chops sharp and have given me a chance to put my music theory/composition degree to good use.

I have met so many cool people from all over the world. As an American, I am a minority amongst the crew. This has been a great experience as I get to be around people from Indonesia, Philippines, eastern Europe, UK, Australia, Canada, etc. all the time. I have learned so much from them and have made some great friendships.

Finally, I have traveled the world! I have been to all seven continents and about 55 different countries. I have learned so much about different cultures, tried many different foods (you may have heard of my cobra experience, drinking it’s blood, the beating heart, and about every other part of the reptile in Vietnam), seen many great landmarks, including 3 of the 7 modern wonders of the world, and learned a few words in many languages.

I am so grateful for this opportunity I’ve had to travel the world while doing what I love, playing the piano. Tomorrow I will fly out to Vancouver to embark on a four month contract on the ms Zuiderdam. This will be a new challenge as I have received a promotion to bandleader. I will now be the leader of the six piece band, while still playing piano and keyboards. I am excited for this new challenge and opportunity. I will be spending a couple months cruising Alaska, followed by a couple months of Panama Canal cruises. Thank you to all of you for reading and supporting me! More blog posts to come in the near future!

Thank you,

Nathan Hance

Well, for the second half of our Asia segment, we visited Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.

Thailand has been a country I have wanted to visit for awhile, so I was excited to visit Phuket, which is an island off of the mainland. Here I went on a crew tour that took us on a sweet elephant tour. We partook in a bumpy, 45-minute elephant ride, had a chance to hand feed the animals, and watched how they are trained. I can’t say riding an elephant is the most comfortable form of transportation (it’s probably towards the bottom of the list), but it was a fun experience. They are such majestic, fun and intelligent creatures. It was also fun to feed them with a basket of large fruits I purchased. They just wrap their long snouts around the food and put it in their mouths. I had a good time getting two of them fighting for my food. Nothing like some battling snouts. Finally, we saw what some of the young, trained elephants could do. Amazingly, they could put a hat on someone’s head, paint, kick a soccer ball, dance, and even play the harmonica. Additionally, all of these elephants were healthy and treated very well.

Next, I crossed another country off my list with a vist to Colombo, Sri Lanka. I had a really nice, traditional Sri Lankan buffet, with tens of curries cooked traditionally with clay pots. It was made complete with a bunch of roosters running around and the waiter trying to scare the birds out of the trees! The rest of the day was spent in a tuk tuk with an awesome 77 year old driver. In a few hours time we visited an ornate Buddhist temple, a bustling market, an incredible banana market, and a tour of the city. An interesting fact about Sri Lanka is that 94% of the population is literate, despite much poverty.

Finally, we made a few stops in India, though I will only write about Mumbai since I didn’t do much in the first two Indian ports. This was my second time in Mumbai, so I did a few different things, such as visiting the famous caves on Elephanta Island. The shrines to Shiva in these caves are quite detailed and fascinating, as are the monkeys that live and play around this area. Luckily these cute but mischievous creatures didn’t steal any of my belongins. Others weren’t so fortunate…The rest of my time was spent exploring the markets and, most importantly, eating. Thoug my stomach usually doesn’t approve of the food later on, I can’t resist the ridiculously cheap and delicious Indian cuisine. I tried countless curries, breads, and of course plenty of mango lassis:-). Though the city is huge, crazy, and stressful, eating a great meal always makes it better!

Now we are in Egypt, which means we have pretty much made it through the pirate-infested waters. Though we had a piracy drill and apparently a couple of small Somali pirate boats were spotted close to our ship, we are simply too big for the pirates to want to attack. We were equipped, though, with barbed wire around deck 3, LRADs (an acoustic weapon), and water cannons. But we will soon be in the comfort of the Mediterranean after we make our way through the Suez Canal.

Thanks, as always, for reading. And I do apologize for any speling errors as it is sligtly difficult to type pn my Kindle…

All the best to each and every one of you.

-Nathan

4/2/2012

Hello all,
Wow, looks like I have a lot of things to write about since my last post many weeks ago. Since my last post, we have made stops in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Viet Nam, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India.

The highlight in Indonesia was a stop to Komodo Island, one of a handful of Indonesian islands where the famous Komodo dragons live. To my surprise, we got to see aobut five of these giant lizards up close in the wild, only kept away from us by a few guys with sticks. Those creatures sure are intimidating and not something I would want to seein the wild, but it was an awesome experience being just a few feet away from them.

Next in Hong Kong, where I have been once before, I explored some different parts such as Lama Island, which disappointingly has a stream full of garbage and no llamas:-(. But I had a fun time eating at a very popular Chinese fancy fast food place where I was the only white person and probably the only one that needs more chopstick practice…Finally, a bunch of us stayed out late in this city that never sleeps, drinking cheap beers from 711 and listening to some good cover bands.

Our next stop was to Nha Trang, Viet Nam, where I did not drink a cobra’s beating heart this time . Instead, I had a delicious Vietnamese feast for only a few dollars, followed by a very relaxing hour-long massage for just ten dollars.

Another visit to Singaore was fine by me, and this time I madeit abut the food. After some delicious food at the Chinatown hawker centre, I made a long trip out to Anthony Bourdain’s favorite hawker centre, Changi Village. I had a delicious local favorite here, Nasi lemak, along with Singapore’s national dish, Chicken rice. This was topped off with a delicious lychee tea, with a treat of fresh lychees at the bottom, and a very full stomach! I finished my time here with a long walk around the whole Botanic Gardens, a $30 profit at the casino, and a sore body…

I still have to write abut the rest of our Asia stops, but I think this is enough for now. More coming soon as I continue this adventure on the world cruise!

-Nathan

3/4/2012

Hello all. Since I last wrote, it has been pretty quiet and uneventful in my life. We have had about 21 sea days and only 7 days in port. But we were sailing through the world’s largest body of water, the Pacific Ocean. This last run included stops in the mysterious Easter Island, America’s only territory south of the Equator: American Samoa, and two Australian stops in Sydney and Cairns.

I have been fortunate enough to now have visited Easter Island twice. For some reason, though, the Moais looked sadder than they did last year. I guess even statues get the blues….Joking aside, it is a magical place. How those magnificent and intricate statues got there remains a mystery, and I am fortunate to have seen them twice now.

It was odd to see the American flag flown so far south, in American Samoa. The crew had a good time here shopping at the small grocery stores and finding American products. I wouldn’t want to live here, though, mostly because of the heat. I sweated through my shirt just from a half hour walk at 8 am. That is saying something…

Australia is one of my favorite countries, so it was nice to visit this country again. I am still in love with Sydney. No, not a girl named Sydney, the city But if someone knows a nice, beautiful Sydney, I wouldn’t mind meeting her! Anyways, Sydney is a beautiful city and my walk through the city and the botanical gardens at 7 am was simply marvelous. It made me wish I could be an everyday morning person. I don’t think this will happen, though. I am a musician after all.

I checked a few new things in Sydney this time, one being the City campus of Hillsong Church on Sunday morning. It is possibly the biggest church in Australia, with tens of campuses throughout the world and 15 extension services in Sydney alone, and seven services at the City campus. While it wasn’t the kind of service I’m used to, with a very evangelical feel and more of a concert atmosphere, seeing them fill up all the seats and the passion of the congregants was impressive. The music was quite good and passionate as well.

In Cairns, I had a nice experience jamming in a local jazz club. Four of us from the band on the ship ended up at Bernie’s Jazz Club, where the owner graciously allowed us to play a 20-minute set to close out the night. It was a lot of fun for us to have musical freedom and play the kind of music we really love to play. I only wish we were going to Cairns more than once so we could go play again.

Now we are on our way to Komodo Island, Indonesia, where I hope to see the rare Komodo Dragon. After that, we will have stops in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India. Should be some more exciting times!

Thanks for reading as always,

Nathan

2/17/2012

Since I last wrote, we have been mostly in the colder, southern part of the world. Three of these days were spent cruising Antarctica. This was my seventh and final continent to visit, and one of the most unique and interesting.

The first day in Antarctica was a typical day in this climate, cold and windy. The wind must have been around 40-50 mph the whole day, which made the 32 degree temperature into a near freezing wind chill. While this felt more like home to me, many others did not enjoy this . However, the second day was an amazing day. The weather is not usually very cooperative down here, so to get a 32 degree day with no wind and the sun shining all day is quite remarkable. I actually managed to get a sunburn on this day! The third day was a half day spent with scientists and workers at America’s Palmer Station on board giving presentations.

Antarctica was quite an amazing experience. Just seeing a land unspoiled by mankind is great to see. The only two colors visible most of the time were the blue of the ocean and sky and the white of the snow and icebergs, but perhaps this made it even more amazing. At least a few times an hour, I would see a group of penguins gracefully swimming through the water, or hundreds of penguins nesting and standing around one of the scientific stations, or a group of scientists waving their national flag and waving to the ship. All the while, I was marveling at the insane beauty of this winter wonderland. Who knew a cold desert could be so beautiful. Sometimes, I just wanted to jump on the icebergs and slide into the water, though I realize this wouldn’t be as enjoyable once I hit the freezing cold water. All in all, Antarctica was a great experience and one I was fortunate to have, even if we weren’t able to actually step on the land. It is a place I will forever remember.

After leaving Antarctica, we traveled to the two southernmost cities in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina and Punta Arenas, Chile. In Ushuaia, I did a beautiful hike with a couple friends. At times, we were walking through an eerie forest that felt like a scene from Lord of the Rings. The top of the mountain included a beautiful view of the city and a cloud coming in and engulfing us.

In Punta Arenas, a took a tour to , where hundreds of Magellanic penguins were hanging out. Seeing the young penguins learn how to swim, some adult penguins nesting, watching them waddle around, others digging and climbing into their burrows, others calling for their mates, and all of them just being the most awesome and cutest animals alive. I have been trying to figure out what animals a penguin reminds me of, and have decided to call them HumanFishBunnyBirds. They try to walk like humans do, they are great swimmers like fish, these penguins built burrows and were cute just like bunnies, and well, they are technically birds.

My time in Antarctica and southern South America was very enjoyable and filled with plenty of penguins, seals, whales, birds, and just enjoying nature’s beauty.

Thanks for reading,

Nathan

1/28/2012

Lately I had the good fortune of visiting two of South America’s biggest and most famous cities, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

Two days in Rio started off a great night of samba music from a smokin nine-piece modern samba band. What a great atmosphere also, with the locals dancing it up all night. The second day I got some sightseeing in, seeing one of the modern marvels of the world, Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado. What a magnificent and marvelous structure with a great view of the city. I also made a stop at one of Rio’s most famous beaches, Copacabana. It is probably the nicest and longest beach I have seen.

Moving down the coast, the ship docked for two days in Buenos Aires. I spent a leisurely first day seeing the town, with one o the highlights being La Boca neighborhood, with its brightly colored houses. The night was spent at a great tango show. Two different bands and great dancing made for a true, passionate tango show. In addition,this show had a cultural part, with a gaucho mariachi-style band and an amazing bolo dancer. A great cultural experience.

Luckily I didn’t get sick in Brazil or Argentina like many crew and passengers did. We were warned to avoid certain foods and local water in these countries because of the frequent sicknesses of non-natives from them.

Now we are close to Antarctica and I am excited for my first experience with the seventh continent. It is bound to be a great and beautiful experience.

Thank you for reading as always,

Nathan

1/17/12

Greetings from Brazil! I have now been on the Amseterdam for 11 days on the World Cruise. After a couple stops in the Caribbean and two stops in Brazil, we are on our way to Rio de Janeiro, for which I am very excited.

One of the highlights of this cruise so far was an Amzon river and jungle crew tour I went on in Belem, Brazil. Though brief, it offered a glimpse into the lushness and diversity of the Amazon. I especially enjoyed sampling some exotic fruits (Luckily, I did not get sick from this fruit like a couple crew mmbers did…). Another highlight was watching an 80 year old native man quickly scale a 70 foot tree.

On the music side of things, I am enjoying playing with an excellent band, of which 5 of the 6 memebers have returned from the 2011 word cruise. We had the fortune last week of playing with the very talented Melissa Manchester. She is still a great singer and a vvery talented musician and comopser, in addition to being a ver nice woman. Tomorrow, Doc Severinsen and his band, the San Miguel Five, will be performing on the ship. I am excited to watch their show tomorrow.

On the personal side, I am very much enjoyimg my time on the ship with many friends from past contracts. I am working diligently on my Spanish skills and arranging some tunes for a friend’s upcoming CD in my free time.

As always, thank you for reading and best wishes.

-Nathan

1/5/2011

I promised another blog entry about my last couple of months, so here it is!  On my last ship, the Nieuw Amsterdam, I spent 3 months in the Mediterranean and about a month in the Caribbean.  After the eventful Atlantic crossing, I enjoyed the warmth and relaxation of the Caribbean.

It was nice for a change to not worry about seeing all the sights and instead focus on relaxation.  I went on morning beach runs, played beach volleyball, did plenty of swimming, and soaked up enough sun to make people back home jealous.  Since North Dakota does not have an abundance of beaches, I make sure to take advantage of the great Caribbean beaches.

On the business and music side of things, I just finished writing charts for Elika Santos’ new show.  I worked with Elika on the Nieuw Amsterdam, accompanying him for morning opera aria recitals.  He is a great singer and even performed my song cycle, Debajo de los Zapatos.  He plans on taking his vocal variety show around Asia this year.  Make sure to check out his music at ElikaSantos.com

I now have a couple more shows to write charts for, so this will keep me busy.  It is nice to use my music composition degree and help my friends in the process by helping write shows for them.  I also am always working hard on improving my piano chops and trying to become a jack of all trades, master of all .  I still have a LONG ways to go, but it is a good goal, I believe.

As I write, I am about to embark on the 2012 World Cruise on HAL’s ms Amsterdam. I did the world cruise last year and am looking forward to this year’s world cruise.  Highlights of this cruise are Brazil, Argentina, and Antartica.  It also repeats some of my favorite cities, Sydney, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and Singapore.  I will also be back with almost the same band as last year, so that makes for a more comfortable transition and a fun reunion.  I am looking forward to what 2012 has in store.

Thanks for reading and I hope we will all have warm weather this winter

-Nathan

Well, so much for updating this blog more frequently. It looks as though it’s been two months….

In the last two months, I’ve spent two more weeks in the Mediterranean, crossed the Atlantic Ocean (for the 2nd time), spent a great three weeks in the Caribbean, and enjoyed two weeks at home, visiting friends from Minot all the way to Minneapolis.

I’ll therefore divide this post into two parts, covering Europe and the Atlantic crossing in this post.

Over the last two weeks of Mediterranean cruising, I enjoyed final trips to Istanbul, Santorini, Venice, and almost Athens. Why almost Athens? Well, because we had to cancel our call to that port because of the day of protests in Europe. Most of the tour operators, as well as much of the city, went to protest the economic troubles in Greece. I still wanted to go witness the protests, but it’s probably best I didn’t…

Istanbul was one of my favorite stops on this cruise. Not everyday you get to visit a country that lies on two continents and is essentially part of three land masses (Europe, Asia and the Middle East). I enjoyed visiting the gorgeous Blue Mosque as well as the fascinating underground cisterns. Not to mention some fresh squeezed pomegranate juice and kebabs on the street.

If you haven’t heard of Santorini (which I hadn’t), look it up. It is the poster chid of Greece and is absolutely stunning. In order to get from the dock to the town, you must either take a cable car, ride a mule, or walk the 600 some steps amongst mule poop. I have done all three now, with my latest venture taking the stubborn mule up the steps. Let’s just say that it walked when it wanted to walk. Still a great experience and worth it to get up to the beautiful town and enjoy some delectable moussaka.

And, of course, it’s not complete without another stop in Venice. This day consisted of running around with our singer, Rachel, trying to get all of our shopping done, searching every shop in St. Mark’s Square for a specific sweatshirt, drinking plenty of cappuccinos and hot sangria, and weaving through Venice foot traffic as fast as we could in order to get back to the ship in time for rehearsal (we made it back with about a minute to spare). What a day!

The first time I crossed the Atlantic (the end of the World Cruise coming back to Florida), the seas were calm and it was a very uneventful six days. This time, however, it was an eventful nine days, due to a storm and cancelled ports. On one of the first days of the crossing, we hit a big storm, which caused the ship to list (lean to one side) significantly.

At one point, we hit a big wave, causing the ship to lean about 45 degrees to the side. I was in the Lido restaurant at this point eating breakfast. I was fortunately on the higher side of the ship; my friend eating across from me at the table was not so fortunate. I was able to save his plate from falling off the table; however, his coffee made its way onto his pants and he slid on his chair ten feet backwards. It was quite an amazing sight to see. I guess that’s what earthquakes feel like. Unfortunately, the ship lost thousands of dollars in plates, glasses, food, alcohol, etc. because of this wave. Quite an experience.

As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll write again soon to cover another month of adventures!

-Nathan