3 “oh ****! can i say ****?” and “python in a bowtie”

00:00

It's this kind of immersive theatre experience, kind of based on Greek mythology. There is like these two big warehouses, one is ancient Greece and one is Troy. And there's all these actors and dancers being gods and goddesses. And then the audience kind of like, you have to wear a mask and you go in and you like follow all these characters. And then there's like this little cabaret bar at the side and that's where I am. What the hell is my job?

00:30

Do you want me to talk about the cruise first? The cruise was so terrible. COVID restrictions were still in place in England. So I looked at my calendar and I was like, oh, this is bleak. I have nothing, absolutely nothing booked. And I was really sick of teaching kids piano on the Zoom. That was hell. So I was like, okay, fuck it. I'll take this cruise job. Oh, can I say fuck it? But it was kind of horrible. It was really depressing. It was really lonely.

00:57

And the good parts was that I got to play every day and I felt like I got a bit rusty during COVID because I couldn't play drums in my flat. I tried once and my neighbor was like, no. So it was like a six month contract and I probably should have just come out of it but I'm a bit too stubborn to admit defeat. So I stayed on there for like the whole six months and got really depressed and kind of claustrophobic.

01:21

But I think it would have been better if it wasn't during COVID because we weren't allowed off the ship for the first three months. And we kind of were only allowed to be around the crew area, which is all below sea level. So you don't really get to see the light of day much. And they're also like, oh, you have to social distance, but there's like not enough space to social distance. And I ate dahl for like six months straight because that was the only vegan option. But I've had dahl recently and it was really good. And it didn't bring back any flashbacks.

01:50

But yeah, the good parts was playing and the musicians are all really great. But the MD of the whole ship, like the guy that did the office, he bit, he was kind of really gross and creepy and because we were a girl band, which was kind of weird anyway, it's just higher musicians of all genders. But they were like, oh, we're so forward thinking and we'll have an old girl band. And felt like they wanted to see us fail or something. So the MD tried to make it really difficult, like.

02:19

withhold the sheet music until the very last minute and just kind of knew that one or two of the other girls were kind of struggling a little bit with the reading, but would just like talk about them and kind of make weird comments about their bodies. And I won't get into that too much, but yeah, he was an asshole. So yeah, I'll never go back on a cruise again, but I was doing more teaching earlier this year and last year, but I got a bit busier and I've been able to filter that out a little bit. I hate teaching theory.

02:46

So I get a lot of dep gigs, which is deputy really, but means that you're filling in for the drummer that is either sick or away or double booked or something. So a lot of the gigs that I get are those ones and it kind of means that some of them are very last minute. So it's a lot of learning things really fast. I had a well-paid dep gig last week and that was great, but I had like one day to learn 30 songs, which was stressful, but kind of a good kind of stressful.

03:15

It kind of keeps me on my toes, I suppose. So this one was a percussion gig, so I wasn't playing the full drum kit. I had like four electronic pads, floor tom, snare, tambourine, backing vocals, few little wood blocks, et cetera. So I think the pressure is off a little bit for that setup rather than full drum kit because it's kind of on top, if you know what I mean, rather than supporting the whole band. If the drummer stops, then everyone is like, what the, what's happening?

03:44

I mean stops at the wrong place. Or if they don't stop at the right place. It's the worst feeling if you don't know what's happening. Oh my God, oh fuck, it's horrible. And you're like, where the fuck am I? Oh God, oh. And you just kind of do some tinkly thing until you can figure out where you are. And then it's like, hopefully nobody will notice. And then you come off stage and you're like, I'm so sorry about that bit. And the keyboard's like, oh wait, what? I have no idea, I was stressed as well.

04:10

I've definitely had nightmares about it, so I've tried to avoid it as well. Because I had this nightmare recently that I was stepping for the Keys part on Annie the Musical. Like, I don't even f***ing know where that came from. I have, like, I don't even play Keys that much these days. But like, none of the other musicians in the pit would let me see their sheet music. And they were all being really, like, secretive about it. And I was like, I haven't seen the music. I don't know what's happening. And they won't give me the music. And then all of a sudden I'm on the piano and...

04:39

They say go and I'm like, ah, and then I wake up. So the nightmares have made me prepare extra so that hopefully that never happens. So, yeah, I only had a day to learn all of those songs, so I didn't actually get a chance to go to my drum space. So I kind of just air tambourined and air drummed for a day and learned it in my head. If it's like a wedding band or something like that, you're not allowed to introduce yourself to the band in front of the client because they're like, wait, what? You don't know each other?

05:08

We're a band that practice every week. It looked like I was probably having a great time, but inside I'm a little bit stressed.

05:19

It's hard to... I mean, I've got a working freelance and it's kind of becoming a bit like a partnership thing, kind of messy, maybe. So basically I've had to like make a demo to like convince him last minute because he hasn't told his wife about the project and he's going to tell his wife about the project and he's thinking, oh, we might not be able to do it, get the budget, because it's a very pie in the sky, weird techie thing.

06:05

kind of with AI and stuff. What the hell is my job? So I've done the entrepreneurial thing, and I've created a demo that I'm going to show them today of it working to do the AI thing. But it's basically automating a task that's very niche. No one else would do it. It's not particularly hard to do, but it involves a lot of Python scripting and certain online AI platform.

06:35

You know when you write a list to go shopping, what you want, and then imagine that but then you give it to a computer and then the computer is like a little snake with like a bow tie and he's like, hello! And you're like, hey, can you get me all this stuff? And then he gets it for you. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to make money if I did music production.

07:01

at university. So then I was like, I knew how to do some, I guess you could say coding from when I did Warcraft 3 mods. I used to do Warcraft 3 maps, which involved like some variable tweaking and stuff, which was a bit program-ery. And so I always had a little bit of a knack for it. And I knew that that was an option. And I thought that some of the stuff people were doing integrating coding and music was cool. Just like as an idea. I didn't really know much about it. Just like all techer and...

07:30

And our Apix twin. I wasn't deeply into them, but I just thought it was kind of cool. So then I applied to universities for all the stuff I wanted to do. No one would have me. I wanted to do some 3D animation stuff. They wouldn't have me because I didn't know how to draw like figures. Really weird. And then I went to like a more artsy uni and they loved me. I, it was really cool. I got to just make my music videos and stuff and they would just give me good grades. They thought it was cool.

08:01

You can get paid a ridiculous amount of money for knowing a very niche part of some kind of way of doing certain things that are to do with programs. So, for instance, if you know about neural networks, you know about convolutional neural networks, you know about filters, you know about convolutions, you know blah blah blah blah blah. And that's fine, and that could get you a job.

08:23

but like if you know about it specifically as it applies to like analyzing engines, this particular type of it, then you're the only person who knows that. And then there's just, they have to pay you a lot of money. And the people who have to pay you a lot of money tend to be, they tend to have a fucking lot of money to put around. But the thing is for me, I always feel just kind of weird how much I would get paid for some of this stuff. I don't really care as much about making a lot of money.

08:51

Anymore, I more prefer to be able to be more in control of the projects I'm working on and to kind of invest in the projects I'm working on, rather than receiving some kind of obscure task from high above and then getting a bit of money from it. Yeah, with my career, I could have gone on to go and make like a fairly decent wage, like quite a high amount with what I was doing, but I just got really fed up with the work culture.