Theme Parks

[Biggs]

Since a few weeks ago (and through the remainder of the summer), I have been employed at an amusement park playing the tuba and managing the strolling, four-piece group. Though I am not here to complain, I will state that the working conditions are less than ideal. I don't intend to reveal either the park where I work or the company that contracted me (if you simply must know for some reason, PM me).

Does anyone have any experience with this type of work? If so, I'd appreciate any entertaining stories.

I, in particular, enjoy the stampede of GROWN men (mullets optional) running to be first on a roller coaster when the gates open. Some of the most determined ones like to literally crawl under the gate as it is being raised to gain an extra advantage.

[Mister JP]

I'm a grown man who also happens to be a roller coaster enthusiast. I will admit to running to the new coaster on opening day, or running to the newest one at the opening of the park (if you can call the speed at which I move 'running'). But I do draw the line at making myself look foolish or breaking the rules when it comes to gaining an advantage.

Hey, it's all about what pushes your buttons, and I love roller coasters. And I know I'm not the only one on this board...

[Biggs]

I enjoy the occasional coaster ride in my down time, so I can sympathize with coaster enthusiasts. But these guys are more like coaster acolytes. If I saw my father (or even a twentysomething friend) behaving that way, I'd be mortified.

[tubatooter1940]

I finally got up to see my niece sing on her gig at a Virginia theme park. She sang and danced six shows a day with a 30 minute break in between shows. I knew she could sing but I was surprised to see her dance so wonderfully well.
That sweet girl spent four of her breaks taking me for free rides on the park's superb roller coasters.

[BVD Press]

I did the Disney All-American Marching Band a while back. Quite fun, enjoyable and I gained a ton of knowledge. We memorized close to 2 hours of music in a week including dance steps etc. Everyday we played "Minnie the Moocher" which started with Bass Drum solo. When you play pieces everyday there are "brain farts" occasionally. As the conductor counts off for this chart, the bass drum player (also my room-mate) leans over to me and says "Who starts this one?" Needless to say it did not start well....

They treated us OK and it was fun. Good luck with your gig!

Here is a link to the tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08wOPt-2PeE

Brings back some really fun memories!

[Søren]

I worked in Legoland as the resident jazzband for 6 years. The band was also a 4 piece strolling and permanent group. We did 6x45min playing per day, 5 days a week and playing other gigs at nights and jazzfestivals on the weekends.

And as you experience, the working conditions was less than ideal. Since we were employed on our own separate contract, we had our own pause room and had a lot of influence on how we did things. But we had our share of showdowns with both guests and managers.
Take it as a learning experience. Challenge yourselves everyday. We learned a lot about putting a preformance together, and we did a new tune each day and played the ones we knew in different keys and in different styles. Do everything to enjoy yourselves and not fall into a bad daily routine.

If you don't get chewed up and have to quit, you will come out the other side being stronger and a much better musician than you would have been sitting home and practicing.

[Dean]

I gotta chime in with CARTuba with Busch Gardens, Williamsburg.

It was the most fun summer I have ever had, and may ever have. I sometimes wish I could've altered that time in my life to allow a few more summers at that gig, but bigger and better things came along.

I was a euphoniumist with the "Festhaus" band--basically a polka band in a 2000 seat German beer hall.

The pay was good (not amazing, but good). The schedule was great. Plenty of spare time to go grab a coaster ride or the like. Nice discounts--you get several comp tickets a season and then cheap tickets after that to invite friends and family to the park. The people (most of em) were awesome. I've kept many friends over the years from that summer--some of which turned into good professional contacts as well.

There were small gripes, but they were so small that I won't even detail them. I highly recommend anyone go for one of those spots!

[ken k]

I will say that the shows I saw at Busch Gardens were fantastic shows, every bit as good, if not better than, Disney. I loved the Italy show, with a killer band and the Octoberfest show at Germany was great. (So were the brats and beer!) The band that played at the Busch water park (can't remember the name) was great too. They waded in the wave pool (while the waves were not waving!) and played "Hawaii 5-0 and they had it timed just so that as soon as they finished the siren sounded and the waves started up. This was about 3 years ago.
k

[Biggs]

ONLY because some security guy treated everyone working for the park as if they were all thieves, we went out of our way to take some (worthless: $1 - $5) stuff about which he made a big deal - I recall one of those disposable plastic ponchos, a thin plastic-like windbreaker, and (maybe) a T-shirt. That guy was the only (_!_) that I encountered at the park.

Given that our security folks are in their 80s, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find out he was now one of my co-workers.

...Though I am not here to complain ...

Like I said, I'm more interested in hearing others' stories about similar work than unloading whatever my own grievances may be. There's plenty of time to do that during the workday.

[EdFirth]

Having spent 17 years as a full time musician at the Happiest Place on Earth I have these observations.In my situation the money was good and they don't work you too hard but as stated earlier you can lose the musicality and get caught up in the lifestyle. We called it dropping your anchor in the Disney harbor. As a job these are nice situations but if you want to have a real musical career, as opposed to a musical entertainment career,unless you tirelessly pursue your musical goal, ala Mike Roylance, you will experience musical atrophy and eventually be someone who can play your warm up and the gig and that's it.Not that there's anything wrong with that. If they lay you off you can transfer to other areas and continue being employed but the ones who do that are not often too happy about it. Other than that you still have a job and benifits. I guess what I mean is it should be like a McDonald's summer job. Not a career. Our favorite ride was not a roller coaster but the Tower of Terror and we spent way too much time there. Mabye the best thing about these jobs is the people you end up working with who are musically inspired and go on to do wonderful things in the business. My personal favorite was John Allred.Go back to school!Ed

[EdFirth]

After reading my post I realized that I forgot to mention one of the finest tuba players and human being I know. Chris Olka.We played in the tuba quartet and the World Band together alot and he never took his eye off the ball of getting a symphony job. He never fluffed off the gig but remained focused on his goals.Also Willie Clark, who was very loyal to the job until it finally dried up. Had he been motivated in that direction , I'm certain he would have one of the orchestral jobs that have opened in the last ten years.It was my pleasure to associate with these guys and make music with them.Ed

[Rick Denney]

The only problem I had in my theme-park gig was keeping my mind on the music. Our park had a water park.

Rick "stay between the lines" Denney

[Craig Garner]

Does anyone have any experience with this type of work? If so, I'd appreciate any entertaining stories.

...I'll offer a story and some advise.....first, the advice. Work (and life for that matter) is what you make of it. It is as fun or interesting or soul-crushing as you want it to be. In your current gig, you are a hired-hand and there are 30 guys willing to take your spot as soon as you're gone. And while the conditions are "not good," remember, you aren't working on an oil rig in Alaska in the winter, so really, how bad can it be?? You get respect by earning respect. Go the extra mile, act like you love this gig and want it to be the best show on earth. Show up early, go home late. Offer creative suggestions that will make the "show," and by extension, your bosses, look better. If you look and act like you don't care....then no one will care about you either.

That said, this is probably a very, very good musical experience. You will have chops of steel, if you don't already. If you can get creatively involved, you can learn new music, work on new arrangements that are higher, faster, HARDER, that you push you and the group to be better musicians.

OK, enough of that!!

I worked at a theme park playing in a dixieland band in Charlotte many years ago. It was a great experience, but it did NOT start off that way. Like you, things were "not good" at the start. The music was basic, no solos were used. The costumes were made of WOOL, long pants with spats, long sleeve shirts and hats.....did anybody ever look at a weather report for Charlotte in the Summer??? And, we played mid-day...in the SUN!!!

The band got together, worked on some great solo breaks which we presented to the music managers as "more realistic" and wasn't that what the park audience wanted?? Solos were added. Eventually, we added new charts, too. Now the music was smokin' and we could work on those soloing skills every 45 minutes, 6 days a week. Next, costumes. We said we "loved" the costumes, but the massive sweat stains may not be all that attractive to the park guests!!! Management agreed. Cotton slacks, short sleeve shirts, no hats. Next, the mid-day sun. We suggested that we could play late afternoon into the evening (the park was open til 11 pm, but there was no music entertainment after 6!!!) We became the only live music after dark. Our audience actually got BIGGER for each show once we started playing a night.

It sounds so easy, in retrospect. But getting management to change ANYTHING was like pulling teeth. They were in charge and we were just the musicians. But it was worth it!!

[Matt G]

When Disney in Orlando was employing something like 20 tuba players and there were other daytime paying gigs, it was quite the scene. There was also a lot of good stuff to be found in Church Street. For whatever reason (I blame cost accounting), in the mid-to-late 1990s, these jobs started to go away. It was actually beneficial to blow off school some days and go hear these guys play. Ed might be modest, but he and a lot of the other tuba players out at those parks were fantastic players. As mentioned by Ed, the fact that Chris Olka, Mike Roylance, and Willie Clark (among others I'm surely forgetting) went out of WDW and secured jobs that are the envy of every tuba player in college today speaks highly of the caliber of players that existed in the WDW parks.

One of the great things about those jobs is that they will teach a player versatility that no other job will. WDW offered:

-The World Band, which played a lot of quality standard band literature and some swing/ragtime stuff

-Furturecorps, which was like a marching version of Maynard's Big Bob Nuveau

-The Tubafours, which were simply a kick *** tuba-euph group that played flat awesome (and hard) charts arranged by Gail Robertson

-The Germany job at the World Showcase, which was a lot of standard polka literature

-The Hollywood Hitmen, which would play Tower of Power type stuff (with straight funk bass lines)

-There was a Dixieland combo that seemed to be a bit hard to catch, but Bill Allred was the lead (IIRC) and they played some awesome trad stuff

-Seasonal stuff like the candlelight orchestra

-Whatever else I am forgetting...

The thing is, if you wanted to be a consistent sub or "two-day" guy, you had to be able to play a these books spotless. While I have no doubt how great the players are in most symphony orchestras are, they just don't have to have the stylistic range that the WDW guys had. The job was almost as crazy (potentially) as a studio job in terms of what you could expect day to day if you were a sub.

The great side effect was also the ability to grab lessons. Most of the guys would teach on the side, and it definitely showed in the area high school tuba players. There was a lot of high school talent going on in the Central Florida area in the early to mid 1990s. Most of those guys went far away to school if they studied tuba, it seemed. Only hacks like me were in C.Fl. for college.

I had some fun as a college musician. There were jobs that had better "scenery" than others. All in all, it seemed easy to get "dark" on the scene at times, but it seemed like a better job than a lot of other things.