Arrrgghh. Gary, again I agree with most of what you say, but you're starting (and ending) from a position of "chas hates technology and/or arranger keyboards". Not so. I'm an engineer, I'm in love with technology. Captain Russ often speaks of his "love/hate" relationship with his arranger KB. I'm pretty much the same...when used as a tool to stimulate creativity and assist in bringing the result of that creativity to speedy fruition, then I love them. When used as a crutch to stifle creativity and artistic development, I hate them. Someone mentioned the decline of music programs in our schools, thereby diminishing the number of trained musicians in the next generation. And that may be the REAL issue in this thread. As FAEbGBD correctly pointed out, it's already too late for the "older generation" who not only can't adjust their taste in music (and probably shouldn't have to try) but are also content to hack out the chords to Moon River on their auto-accompaniment keyboards. So maybe it's too late to "educate" our current audiences, but maybe we SHOULD obligate ourselves to stop the downward slide that seems to be the trend with our young people. If you've got kids or grandkids, try to expose them to something of quality and explain to them that Gramps is only using this arranger KB for convenience and that they need to turn off the iPod and go practice their piano lesson. And good luck with that .

chas