as a Jazz-oriented player, I'm using an arranger differently
from most: I'm muting everything but bass and drums
exept when i want to add some spice by having some brief
guitar strumming on a bossa nova or brass riffs on a swing style, or a little bit more of the full arrangement
(rarely all of it) for a funky blues or 50's oldie or latin
salsa /mambo etc..but just for spice, I never do 2 tunes
in a row with fuller backgrounds, makes me feel kind of
like i am 'canned"..that's why I don't use smf's either.

sometimes i'll mute the bass too and play a lh bass
line of my own. i never use the muted left hand and hold
down a chord. i always have the full kb working. If I'm
using a rh sound that it makes no sense to have across
the full kb (muted tpt, flute, etc.) I'll put a piano or rhodes
or guitar or organ sound in the left hand. never strings in
lh, i prefer to layer the strings over piano or others, not
have it leftside.

I find putting the bass on inversion all the time results in
a better harmonic bass line for me, maybe because my
voicings are instinctive and not always conventional. I also
find i get better results when I set the chord recognition to
full kb rather than just left of the split point. one of the
drawbacks to this is my kb's won't play ensemble in the
right hand unless the recognition is not full kb.

i never say i'm a 1-man band. i say I play keys w/rhythms
(plus vocals and sax) or 1-man jazz trio for certain gigs.

Obviously, my approach is not going to work for those
who want to duplicate hit tunes as close to the original
as possible, or want to sound like a full band all the time
------------------
Miami Mo

[This message has been edited by keysvocalssax (edited 05-27-2007).]