Quote:
Originally posted by Diki:
Chicken or the egg again, I'm afraid... If I were doing a schlager gig in Bavaria, most of these styles would be perfect. But there's little here that screams 'USA'! Or 'Under 30' There's a definite European slant to all the styles, and that's OK... after all, that's where it is made. But if you want the US market to open up to this in a big way, it's going to need a fair bit of work to sound a bit less hokey.

Or it will be relegated to retirees (and those that play for them!), which ain't exactly a HUGE market over here. The American arranger market won't grow unless American music can be performed well on them (and I don't mean pastiche 50's & 60's stuff). Let's put it this way. No-one is going to play something that doesn't suit their music in the hope that, in the future, sometime maybe, whenever, it WILL be better suited for you... They are going to buy what suits them NOW.

Imagine the howls of protest (and loss of sales) in Europe (and here!) if Japanese arrangers had primarily styles in them that suited the Japanese market. But they know better than that. If any manufacturer wants to grow the American market, they are going to have to develop styles for them that don't sound so European. It is as big a mistake to think these OUGHT to work over here as it would be for Casio to think that Enka OUGHT to work in Europe.

A LOT of European music is BASED on originally American forms... jazz, blues, rock, hiphop, etc.. But what it turns into over there is no more American than Enka... If Ketron want to GROW the American market, rather than just tread water, and sell what sounds essentially like a European product to more than those already playing this kind of stuff (primarily by or to the elderly ), they need to make a bunch of styles for us. Not Bavarians, trying to sound a BIT like us!


Good points. The only problem is from the manufacturer's view point is that if they make the styles is there any evidence to suggest that Americans would buy the arranger. At least in numbers to cover the cost of making the styles. It is the same type of argument that Yamaha probably is making regarding a 76 key arranger. Is there any evidence to suggest that persons would buy a 76 key arranger? In both cases, the manufacturers are asking is it wirth their time and money to do something where they claim not to have evidence that it would benifit them.
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