Hi Gar, I think the amount of time between songs, and what you do with it, has a lot to do with the type of venue as well as the size of the room. Performing nonstop from song to another thru the entire set can often give the impression that you're an automatic CD player, or 21st century version of a player piano. That type of gig is not for me. I find, especially for the more casual and/or intimate venues, that brief (30 sec-1 min between songs) chit-chat (to acknowledge people in the crowd) sharing interesting/humorous trivia about songs or topics of the day, as well as bringing the audience into the act, are an important to your act as the music itself. I typically do about 3-4 songs in a roll (zero dead time), and then depending on the mood-energy & interest in the room, will throw in a little chit chat (20 sec -1 min). This gives the patrons (audience) the opportunity to mingle & get another drink, etc. and provides a pace which gives the audience a better appreciation (and desire) to hear the NEXT song. Every mood venue is different and the pace of the music should reflect this. For back to back songs performance, I do medley sets consisting of 3-5 songs that share a theme: subject (cities, etc) or featuring a specific artist/composer known for those songs. Other times (especially on casual gigs), I might think of the next song I'm going to perform (possibly utilizing the SAME arranger style) , while I'm performing the previous song, making for an easy on the fly transition on the arranger, perhaps merely slowing/speeding the tempo of the existing style for the next tune in the same style.

One missing feature I would greatly appreciate being added to the Yamaha Music Finder is the ability to search/scroll thru its database while I'm performing in auto accomp mode. Currently if you search/scroll the MFD while performing, the selected style/tempo automatically begins when a new entry is merely scrolled to. I would like to be able to conveniently 'cue up' the next song style/tempo selection, and have it begin only after I've finished performing the current song. This would greatly assist in reducing downtime during spontaneous 'song selection' performance. As I've stated many times here, I think the the Yamaha MFD potential is powerful. I only wish that Yamaha would fullfill it, and take it to the NEXT level by:

1) Greatly increasing the Yamaha internal USER area memory to support a LOT more MFD style file storage (10mb+), and/or adding MFD access to styles located on remote media.

2) Add MFD feature to support saving a custom REG Memory Bank file with each MFD record. This would greatly increase the MFD power to include: key transpose, voice selection, and ALL other custom memory settings supported by Reg Memory.

3) Ability for MFD pointer to remain at pre-selected entry without jumping back to the first record when the MFD window is exited.

4) Ability to 'cue up' songs in MFD, and have the next selection song style/tempo begin ONLY after a susequent button is pressed, allowing for more convenient on the fly 'song to song' (no dead time) performance. Until then, it appears (to me) that utilizing registrations is the next best thing, abeit not allowing as much 'on the fly' song selection flexibility.

Ok, that's all I have to contribute on this topic 4 now. I 2 am interested to hear from others on this good topic.

Scott