Thing is, Bill, most ladies learned the piano. And still continue to play it. Only some people, mostly men, it seems, want to play in a full band, and the arranger is the way to replicate that sound. After all, it's mostly a guy thing to go 'Let's form a band... hot chicks and all we can drink!' The arranger helps many to give themselves the sound of having done that, even if they didn't actually do it in reality...

But if playing in a band wasn't on your to do list (as many women feel, I think), why would you play something that sounded like you had?

Women don't seem to have the ego that guys do. I see all too many posts here explaining that some play arrangers because they couldn't get along with a real band, it always seems to be the story that everyone ELSE in the band was a slacker, was late, couldn't learn new tunes, yada yada yada... Personally, I don't buy it. I just think an arranger flatters the ego because you can be as bad as it gets, and the arranger never writes on a forum somewhere how bad YOU are (you in the general plural sense, that is!) and puts down your playing!

But women that WANT to play with a band generally DO play with a band. But many men just like to pretend they are playing in one