So I set up my tools and place my tuning device on the piano. My job is to tune the piano to the best of my ability. My tuning device is the same as the guitar players use to tune their guitars, except it cost just under $2,000.
I am able to tune with precision that 95% of ear tuners CAN NOT do. In the past a tuner did his best to guess in certain areas, because of my tuning device I do not have to guess.

A comment that has been given: “You don’t have to use you ear anymore, there goes another art”.
A comment I overheard on a job, I was playing my keyboard live: “All that music is recorded in the keyboard, I think it’s like a tape recorder”.

This clearly tells me that we have ignorant people roaming about. I play in local condos, and on rare occasions have played at the Breakers Hotel here in Florida, it is one high-end hotels in Palm Beach. Why do you not see OMB in this Hotel?
1-If you can afford this hotel the dollars for a live band is normally not a problem.
2-A OMB is what you use to save money.
I played a job back in New York where the bill for the flower arrangement was $100,000. They did not hire a OMB.

All of that being said – one more thing – and I am saying this in my best humble manner – my OMB sounds better than most of the 4 to 5 men groups I have heard. Arranger keyboards are look down as a toy representing no status by both the public and the pro musicians.

Fact: It takes a lot more talent and knowledge to play a live OMB, I have to know about all instruments and how they should be played. A n d, I have to know all about programming my instrument. And I have to do this all while I am singing or relating to whoever. I bet that some of the people who hire us feel we are using toys to perform, BUT smile as the pay for one man instead of 4 or 5 men.

I am proud and I enjoy playing my keyboard, it is the closest I can get to playing with a live band. After playing with a live band for so many years, and missing it, I can sit at my keyboard and earn and enjoy.

John C.

PS, I know of three big name book stores that have closed because of the Internet, I feel that is why arrangers are no longer displayed in most music stores.