Following that forum I often think about the differences between musicians and audiences in the States and here in Germany. But concerning the topic above I have come across that everything here in Germany is just the same. OK, musicians that use arrangers are much more common here, and have been for years. There is a german brand "Wersi" that used to be very popular here in the 80's. They kind of fostered the one-man-band-thing throughout their instruments. But anyway. Audiences here are the same than they seem to be at your places. Sometimes you have the impression that really no one is listening. Another thing is that the people at weddings - gigs we mostly play- seem to dance less and less. I have been playing at weddings since 1982 and in the good old eighties people started dancing to our music right after dinner, that used to be 9.00 p.m.. Nowadays people sometimes start dancing at about 1 o'clock in the morning. And I am not talking about 20 couples here. I am talking about 5 to maybe 10 couples at the most - from a bunch of 100 people altogether. So why are we doing this? I think, we are doing it for ourselves. Our normal gigging is done with me on keyboards and my brother on guitar. What I like most about it is singing. I am singing the second voice and all the solo parts and really like it. We are singing about 90 per cent of our programme singing in two parts.
I know bands that cannot do that at all. They are as successful or even more than we are. They are real good showmen. We are not, and I never wanted to be one. I always wanted to be a musician and a singer and that's what I am.
But the thrill for me is playing with three musicians. Added to our set is another guitar player. He is playing western guitar and singing the second voice while I am doing the third voice. Listening to your own music then is real thrilling. It sometimes makes me shiver listening to ourselves interpreting Uncle Cracker's "Follow me" or "Country Roads" or "That'll be the day when I die". But coming back to the audience: They mostly do not recognize at all. Two weeks ago we played for a friend of ours, a professional trumpet player. It sounded great. When we talked to a couple of professional musicians (horn and wind players) they honestly said, they would not hear the difference between two or three people singing and would not care anyway when listening to dance music. They said they just wanted to be entertained. So that was that. But for us, what can be the conclusion? We should definitely go on giving our best. When performing and feeling good with your own music everything is good - for you as well as for your audience. When you are always feeling that you should not only try to replace four or five musicians but a whole big band we are on the wrong track. We should do what we can do best and what we like best. People mostly recognize your emotions on stage and mostly do not recognize your sounds as much as you think they do.
One example: I used to play a real great Hammond M 100 for years. Then one day it had malfunctions. I got a real shabby Farfisa Professional 88 from my local dealer and hated that evening, having to play my stuff on it. We were playing a club on a regular basis that time. The thing was that not a single man really noticed the difference.
My last point is Uncle Dave's comment on thinner arrangements. I really loved his comments on that. I started as a bass player with my left hand too. In March I played with a drummer and a saxophone player and I had the chance to do that for another time. I really enjoyed every minute of that gig. It reminded me of the good old 80's and I felt like 15 when I started playing life music. But this party was a 50's anniversary-party and you cannot turn back the wheel of time. But you can correct the course of your work. And for two years we have been doing just the same as Uncle Dave is doing. With some songs I am just using the rhythm, playing the bass line with left hand. Using the arrangers (G-1000 and Solton MS 100) I am thinning them as much as I can. That is why I am able to play with 30 or 40 styles that really fit nearly 100 per cent of my music. It keeps you busy over the evening but it gives you much more fun, having done most of it on your own. The reason for doing so was a simple one. We had a power problem on one of our gigs two years ago. That time I was using loads of midifiles both on the Roland and on my Solton. Both keyboards had gone bust and I was lucky that I could borrow a Solton MS 50 from a friend, a "naked" instrument with no registrations or anything at all. My hands were shaking a bit when we started off but we managed the gig. And it sounded fresher than ever before. Different styles (but comparable to the MS 100 of course), different sounds and much more concentration. Having lived through this me and my brother discussed two scenarios: Investing in a hard disk additional midiplayer or cutting the midifile thing back totally. I decided to do the latter and I have not regretted it ever since. While using more and more technology on stage we do not consider two things: Do we and our audience really need all this? And, doesn't lead technology lead us into a wrong direction - away from the keys and more and more to the buttons on our boards? I am saying clearly that I am not a purist at all. I really love arrangers and use their technology to a large extent, we are for example using laptop computers on stage for our lyrics. Nothing is handier.
But I want to be and remain a musician and what I want to do is, handle my tunes more that my operating systems and updates and my music data base.
That was a long statement but anyway guys out there. You have given me so much as a musician so far and I really would like to read your comments on my statement.

Markus from Germany