Donny, let me start by saying that I really DO respect what you do......not many of us here have the ability, talent, or personality to do it, and by all accounts, you do it very well (keeping a room full of older, musically unsophisticated, well-lubed, party-goers entertained). There is a market for that type of entertainer and entertainment and someone needs to fill it. The best of them will make a good living at it. I sure you fit into that latter category. But.....let's never confuse this (or the technology that supports it) with MUSIC.

Let's face it. This board is not about music, it's mostly about technology and how we can use it to further estrange ourselves from our musical roots, from the thrills of musical discovery and the hard-earned skill set that led us to pursue this as a profession. Phil Graham was right; we HAVE become a nation of whiners; golly gee, a 'pro' keyboard with no mp3 player, no synced lyrics , what on earth is the world coming to? How are we going to make 'music'. We have already progressed from three finger chord recognition through two finger to one finger. Well, it had to happen, the NO finger chord (aka the mp3).

The reason there are so many disagreements on this board is that usually the parties aren't talking about the same thing. Singing over an mp3 or SMF in a club has little to do with music, other than the skill of accurately matching the tune to the general level of sobriety in the club.

None of us is actually wrong. We're just talking about different things. Or at least, from a different perspective. The needs of the musician are different from the needs of the club entertainer/DJ. There are two extremes on this board and they will probably never come together on anything such as 'wish-lists', etc. There's the pure musician on one end (Capt. Russ) and the pure entertainer on the other (Donny). Everyone else is positioned somewhere right or left of center, that's why someone like Diki craves a chord sequencer but could care less about an mp3 player. One is more useful to the musician the other more useful to the entertainer.

Hey, it's all good. If keeping people on the dancefloor is your thing or getting paid well (Zuki) is your criteria for musical fulfillment, then go for it. Polite applause and the sense that your audience is actually LISTENING to what you are playing, does it for me. Like I always say, 'different strokes.......'.

chas