What happened to really good orchestras ?

Thank you for the (unnecessary) definitions.

The fact remains: when the standards by which quality is judged decline, ...

Standards are the criteria by which quality is judged.

Quality is the extent to which standards are achieved.

Standards don't ascend or decline. They change. Quality can ascend or decline, and again, based on the extent to which the prevailing standards at the time of the quality assessment are achieved.

And, if the quality of a subject changes, that subject certainly changes.

They were necessary. They made clear that standards do not "define the thing". :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

 

Again:

 

Standards are the criteria by which quality is judged.

 

Quality is the extent to which standards are achieved.

 

Standards don't ascend or decline. They change. Quality can ascend or decline, and again, based on the extent to which the prevailing standards at the time of the quality assessment are achieved.

 

If you're going to abuse the English language so badly to try to make it seem like a point you're trying to make has merit then that should inform you of the lack of merit for your point.

You seem confused: you appear to not grasp the possibility of standards being lowered. Then you seem to be saying I am trying to to make the English language seem like a point I am trying to make.

I suggest you give up using your voice recognition function and take a bit of time in attempting to make sense. The more you repeat yourself, the greater is the possibility that what comes out is double talk.

In any event, I am no longer inclined to discuss matters with you.

You seem confused: you appear to not grasp the possibility of standards being lowered.

Quality (the extent to which standards are achieved) can be raised or lowered, not standards. Standards change, without any qualitative aspect to that change. In English, qualitative aspects, unsurprisingly, are relegated to matters of quality.

The distinctions are important for the very reason that they came up in this thread. Some are trying to make the changes in the cruise industry sound categorically negative, when the reality is that they are only negative with regard to the complainers' own personal preferences - in the broader context, the changes in the industry are positive.

Then you seem to be saying I am trying to to make the English language seem like a point I am trying to make. I suggest you give up using your voice recognition function and take a bit of time in attempting to make sense.

I'd just give up if I were you...

I'd just give up if I were you...

Agreed.

I believe my closing sentence indicated my intent.

I believe my closing sentence indicated my intent.

Regardless, I also believe that my closing sentence earlier indicated my intent.

It sure does a disservice to casual readers and folks coming here for accurate information in preparation for their own vacations.

I sure hope CC remains a valuable place for helping people better enjoy excellent cruises instead becoming exclusively a stew pot for gloom based on unfounded expectations. Hopefully, we can make clear the difference between changes that reflect changes in what today's typical cruise passenger wants and changes that reflect actual poor quality without people getting bent out of shape when the distinction is made.

I'm not confused. I'm rejecting your attempt to claim that standards are something that are raised and lowered. Claiming that kind of nonsense is a standard way people upset about things changing in a way they don't like try to make their personal preference sound more important than it really is.

 

Quality (the extent to which standards are achieved) can be raised or lowered, not standards. Standards change, without any qualitative aspect to that change. In English, qualitative aspects, unsurprisingly, are relegated to matters of quality.

 

The distinctions are important for the very reason that they came up in this thread. Some are trying to make the changes in the cruise industry sound categorically negative, when the reality is that they are only negative with regard to the complainers' own personal preferences - in the broader context, the changes in the industry are positive.

 

Even through voice recognition, my mastery of the English language exceeds your efforts to distort it to support your point. As it is, I use speech recognition when my disabling arthritis gets in the way of me entering words comfortably with my fingers, so if you don't mind I'll continue to use the assistive functionality when needed.

 

 

I actually agree with you about that: Why some people cannot express their personal dissatisfaction without trying to make it sound like someone else is doing something wrong is a mystery to me. It sure does a disservice to casual readers and folks coming here for accurate information in preparation for their own vacations.

You must be a school teacher.

So if we take some standard of performance, say at acceptable is 100, and change that to 50, you are saying that achieving 50 is the same quality is the same as previously achieving 100.

Only in the US school system is that considered a reasonable concept.

Quality is an absolute. Standards may vary, but quality is not measured by the standard.

I can set a standard that is not obtainable. But that does not mean that there is no quality product or service under that standard.

IIRC, the New York, Broadway Theater musician's threatened, or actually went on strike a few years ago, over the issue of substituting recorded tracks for live musician's in musical show's. Not sure how that turned out.....:confused:

I will give "props" to RCI Anthem of the Seas Cruise Director Dennis Charles, for constantly singing the praises for his ship's house band, and even more for him asking the audiences to promise to make it known to RCI officials, of how much they appreciate having live music throughout the ship.:cool:

You must be a school teacher.

So if we take some standard of performance, say at acceptable is 100, and change that to 50, you are saying that achieving 50 is the same quality is the same as previously achieving 100.

That's what I am saying.

Quality is an absolute.

Standards may vary, but quality is not measured by the standard.

No. What I'm saying is that if the standards required knowledge of mathematics and verbal skills, and with a certain proficiency at both you score a 80%, but then the standards change to require knowledge of literature and geology, your score (your quality, I suppose) may go up or down - may improve or degrade - but the standards themselves only changed. The standards didn't go up or down.

 

That's what I am saying.

That is NOT what you said.

What you said was if the standards are 80%, then the standards changed to 60%, meeting the standards would be the same quality. Which is NOT the case. And the standard DID go down. Just like the "standards" in our schools.

And quality IS an absolute.

Or you think that low cost imported goods are high quality, because they meet the standards of the company that made them.

Or that a Yugo is the same quality as a Mercedes, as they both meet their standards.

Or that MacDonald's food is the same quality as a fine dining restaurant, as they both meet their respective standards.

As per the statement I highlighted in red, really?? If the standards change, they don't go up or down?

Hmm, if not a teacher, you must work for the Federal government,. :D

 

...

 

As per the statement I highlighted in red, really?? If the standards change, they don't go up or down?

 

...

 

 

Do you suppose they might just slide sidewise?

I do not like the use of the word "orchestra" here..so will just talk about musicians. And as an example of the vast decline I will focus on HAL (for now). Up until about 5 years ago, HAL used to have a 7 piece ship band (trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano/keyboard, sax, bass, and guitar. In order to save money, HAL cut this back to 5 pieces which consist of 2 keyboards (one does piano and the other tried to make-up for the missing brass and woodwinds) 2 guitars and a drummer. Not only did they lose 2 musicians, but they lost much of their sound since they have no brass or woodwind (using a keyboard sounds like roller skate rink music). At that time HAL also had a classical quartet (generally called the Rosario Strings...named after its founder). They were all fired and replaced by a duet (often piano and violin...or something similar) of varying levels of skill. HAL used to also have a 4-5 piece party band who were generally excellent Filipino bands. For decades, Filipino bands have been known for their ability to mimic many great rock/pop groups. Those bands were also eliminated.

They then made an attempt to replace their 2 onboard bands (show band and party band) with a single pick-up band (musicians do not know each other until they come to work) they called the HAL Cats (again with no brass or woodwinds). This failed miserably as these bands generally sucked (although they could read music). They are now moving into a new reiteration of musicians which vary greatly depending on which size ship. HAL has tried to do some real improvments such as when they started putting together their BB King Groups.....but these have now been relegated to only half the ships. HAL's new thing is to replace a production show or Guest Entertainer with the showing of a documentary movie (in the main showroom) accompanied by some pre-recorded music supplemented by their ship pick-up band. Some on HAL see this as a good thing...but its simply replacing a live show with a TV Documentary. On one of their ships (Maasdam) their new EXP cruises will see the elimination of all production shows (saving the cost of the cast).

Another move by many cruise lines was to do away (or severely limit) having live bands accompany their production shows....replacing it with pre-recorded sound tracks. This saves a fortune since you are replacing bands that would play for hundreds of shows (over the years) with a single recording. And of course you then have as few as 4 singers..accompanied by a group of dancers who often "mouth the words like they are singing" while much of the singing is pre-recorded. I seem to recall that once upon a time Princess even tried to use prerecorded sounds of the dancers feet/taps.....but this disappeared since bad synchronization was really embarrassing.

When I started cruising (in the mid 70s) you would always have a great steel drum Caribbean band on every Caribbean cruise (we cruised NCL, RCCL (now RCI), Carnival and Celebrity in those days). Now, a good Caribbean band is hard to find on many cruise lines. Celebrity used to always have a decent quartet (often smooth jazz) in the "Ensemble Lounge" (hence the name of the lounge)...but that has now been replaced with mostly solo or duet groups. That line used to also feature an A Capella group (similar to barber shop quartets) and that is now gone! On many lines live bands have been replaced with DJs And we could go on and on..but I think most get the picture.

Hank.

That is NOT what you said.What you said was if the standards are 80%, then the standards changed to 60%, meeting the standards would be the same quality.

As it is 60% of 500 is absolutely more than 80% of 300 (for instance). Standards do not go up or down, they just change. Quality is what goes up or down, quality is not absolute because when the standards change the measurement of quality my change even though the subject itself doesn't.

And if you don't understand why that shows very clearly why your attempt to paraphrase what I wrote failed, then there isn't much I can do to help you.

And quality IS an absolute.

Again:

Standards are the criteria by which quality is judged.

Quality is the extent to which standards are achieved.

If the standards change, they don't go up or down?

Hmm, if not a teacher, you must work for the Federal government,. :D

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

I do not like the use of the word "orchestra" here..so will just talk about musicians. And as an example of the vast decline I will focus on HAL (for now). Up until about 5 years ago, HAL used to have a 7 piece ship band (trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano/keyboard, sax, bass, and guitar. In order to save money, HAL cut this back to 5 pieces which consist of 2 keyboards (one does piano and the other tried to make-up for the missing brass and woodwinds) 2 guitars and a drummer. Not only did they lose 2 musicians, but they lost much of their sound since they have no brass or woodwind (using a keyboard sounds like roller skate rink music). At that time HAL also had a classical quartet (generally called the Rosario Strings...named after its founder). They were all fired and replaced by a duet (often piano and violin...or something similar) of varying levels of skill. HAL used to also have a 4-5 piece party band who were generally excellent Filipino bands. For decades, Filipino bands have been known for their ability to mimic many great rock/pop groups. Those bands were also eliminated.

They then made an attempt to replace their 2 onboard bands (show band and party band) with a single pick-up band (musicians do not know each other until they come to work) they called the HAL Cats (again with no brass or woodwinds). This failed miserably as these bands generally sucked (although they could read music). They are now moving into a new reiteration of musicians which vary greatly depending on which size ship. HAL has tried to do some real improvments such as when they started putting together their BB King Groups.....but these have now been relegated to only half the ships. HAL's new thing is to replace a production show or Guest Entertainer with the showing of a documentary movie (in the main showroom) accompanied by some pre-recorded music supplemented by their ship pick-up band. Some on HAL see this as a good thing...but its simply replacing a live show with a TV Documentary. On one of their ships (Maasdam) their new EXP cruises will see the elimination of all production shows (saving the cost of the cast).

 

Another move by many cruise lines was to do away (or severely limit) having live bands accompany their production shows....replacing it with pre-recorded sound tracks. This saves a fortune since you are replacing bands that would play for hundreds of shows (over the years) with a single recording. And of course you then have as few as 4 singers..accompanied by a group of dancers who often "mouth the words like they are singing" while much of the singing is pre-recorded. I seem to recall that once upon a time Princess even tried to use prerecorded sounds of the dancers feet/taps.....but this disappeared since bad synchronization was really embarrassing.

 

When I started cruising (in the mid 70s) you would always have a great steel drum Caribbean band on every Caribbean cruise (we cruised NCL, RCCL (now RCI), Carnival and Celebrity in those days). Now, a good Caribbean band is hard to find on many cruise lines. Celebrity used to always have a decent quartet (often smooth jazz) in the "Ensemble Lounge" (hence the name of the lounge)...but that has now been replaced with mostly solo or duet groups. That line used to also feature an A Capella group (similar to barber shop quartets) and that is now gone! On many lines live bands have been replaced with DJs And we could go on and on..but I think most get the picture.

 

Hank.

It's been 6 years since my last cruise on HAL, primarily because they have "abandoned" the New York market except for one or two cruises each autumn, so I can't comment on them.

Lately, I have cruised on NCL and RCI, both of which offer pretty decent entertainment on their mega-ships sailing from here.

The Anthem of the Seas does a full Broadway show..."We Will Rock You", with an 8 piece band. In addition, they have guest tribute bands of 4 or 5 appearing, and a couple of different party bands of three or four. Also, a piano bar player, a gutarist entertainer in their Pub, and some other live entertainer's in various venues on board. That is one of the benefits of sailing on a ship that carries well over 4,000 passenger's....

The NCL Breakaway, soon to be replaced by the Escape, does similar....

And note my comment about RCI Cruise Director Dennis Charles in my above post....:cool:

We do agree that an advantage of the the huge Mega ships is more entertainment/music options. But until recently, the cruise ships also had pretty diverse and decent music entertainment on their medium size and even some small size. To be honest, given a choice of a 1200 passenger vessel with fewer options versus a 4-5000 passenger ship with many options....we would always opt for the smaller ship :). RCI, NCL, and MSC all seem to have pretty decent musical entertainment. HAL is quickly falling by the wayside (with the half of their fleet that are the smaller vessels) and Celebrity seems to be a work in progress as they seem to be trying to determine the least they can give...and still satisfy enough passengers (this last in my opinion). IMHO Celebrity has reached the breaking point (in many ways) and we have no future cruises booked with them (for the first time in many years).

Hank

We do agree that an advantage of the the huge Mega ships is more entertainment/music options. But until recently, the cruise ships also had pretty diverse and decent music entertainment on their medium size and even some small size.

What do you mean by "until recently"? I remember cruising in the 15-20 years ago and I wouldn't characterize the music entertainment offered as "pretty diverse", as compared to what I've experience on our most recently couple of cruises.

Back in the day :) we would often be on ships (of various lines) that would have a decent party/rock band, steel drum band, classical quartet, decent piano bar entertainer, and even jazz groups (often quartets). The Rock bands would play all kinds of music from 50s Rock and Roll to Beatles and even newer R&B. Most of the ships had 7 or 8 piece house bands that would handle the music for all the production shows (they were not prerecorded).

On HAL, when they tried their HAL Cat concept I think they destroyed much of the real music on their ships. The new BB King group was a terrific attempt at correcting this error...but that is now limited to only half the ships. As I also mentioned, Celebrity has also kept reducing the size of their musical groups so now, one usually has to settle for a solo act or a duet (we had an excellent duo (from Ukraine) on our most recent Reflection cruise. Princess has replaced most of their production show live music with pre recorded stuff. And the quality of their piano bar players is not what is was :(. They have also reduced the length of their production shows from 45-50 ....to about 35 now. On quite a few ships (of many cruise lines) you have empty lounges...where there used to be a musical group. And as I mentioned, HAL is now replacing musical/comedy entertainment with documentary movies or even regular (usually old) movies. I have made no mention of Carnival because we have not been on that line in about 10 years. But on previous Carnival cruises we always found the entertainment to be pretty good...but have no personal experience on the current situation.

The first thirty or so years we cruised there was no such thing as a "dark night." Now, you will get dark nights on longer HAL cruises..and even Celebrity has nights I would call "quiet nights."

I believe you cruise on HAL...so here is the detailed scoop. When we did the Voyage of the Vikings (last August on the Rotterdam) we had a BB King Group and a decent piano bar player ("Barry from Boston"). There was also a classical duo...but most nights that lounge was near empty (and several who were there were sound asleep). There was also the usual 5 piece ship band (2 guitars, 2 keyboards and a drummer) who had to fill several obligations...so some times they would play a few sets of their usual "Roller Skating Rink" music for dancing....but on many nights they only worked in the main theater...which meant there was not another band to play dance music (so there was none!).

But if you were to go on the Rotterdam today, you would find that the BB King group is gone...as they have been removed from all the ships in that class. We are not aware of anything replacing that entertainment. So now, they will have the usual 5 piece ship band, a classical duo, and a piano bar player! Not much for a ship that size. And consider that when that ship band has to work in the main show (to accompany a movie or a Guest Entertainer) they do not play anywhere else during that evening.

Hank