One of the main differences between SMFs and styles, IMO, is the bass lines.......

Too few even acknowledge the importance that a good bassline makes to the structure of a song, and the nature of direction it can show. Arranger play, with it's short repeated SMFs (that's all a style is, after all), never gets the bassline to indicate a chord change.

In a real bassline, the bass player knows what the next chord is, and shapes his bassline to go towards it, thus giving the changes a sense of structure. In an arranger, the bassline never knows what chord is next (until you actually play it!), so it bassically (!) just sits there, until, whoops! now it is playing another chord. No connection, no shape, no flow.......

For me, it is one of the most glaring differences between a real rhythm section, and arranger play. Now add in the fact that ALL the arranger parts are doing the same thing, to a greater or lesser degree, and you have the REAL difference between arrangers and SMFs. At least, to my ears, it is night and day.

So, in a nutshell, you gain the ability to change form and structure with an arranger, at the cost of smooth flow and a sense of coherence.

Add to that the fact that many of us here, home players and less skilled musicians (no disrespect intended, just an acknowledgment of the facts), are addicted to arranger play because it allows them to mess up the melody or structure and have the accompaniment STILL follow them rather than get lost..... In a REAL band situation, you lose your place, the guys are going to give you some hard looks! But with an arranger, you can blithely ignore the correct changes, or structure and no-one is the wiser (especially you!), and this often gives a sense of security that you don't get when you use SMFs.

Remember, SMFs do not have to be full arrangements. Far better to use them as a rhythm section - bass, drums, maybe guitar if you don't play with a guitarist - and play what you would play if you were in a live band, than to use them as glorified karaoke, and risk the disbelief disconnect with your audience.

I have often thought about arranger playing as a wasteful way to immobilize your left hand, doing something that a monkey could do, just to gain the dubious advantage of changing the structure of a song if the audience really needs it, when a set of markers in an SMF could rearrange it just as easily.

OK, perhaps there ARE some of you out there that are great jazzers, capable of reharmonizing and substituting chords like crazy. Good for you! But I suspect it is a VERY small percentage of our membership here..... Most of you tie up your left hands just inputting the same old set of changes every time. Why not record the arranger into a sequencer (just the accompaniment), edit it to have better voice leading, and put in markers for each section?

It is going to sound identical to what you are currently doing (other than have better chord transitions), and free up your LH to do what it can. A 100% increase in what YOU actually play, rather than the machine. Not too shabby.

I realize I'm going to upset some of the 'arranger purists', but personally, I refuse to let a technique arbitrarily dictate to ME how I should play anything. If arranger play works well enough, all well and good, if not, I will use whatever makes the music sound it's best. Some songs I use the full arranger - some songs I just use arranger drums and play LH bass, some songs I will use an SMF with just bass and drums, some have more parts. You have to make the machine work FOR the music, not the other way around.....