Quote:
Originally posted by WDMcM:
You know Donny, I don't believe that will happen. There will always be senior centers, retirement homes, etc. There will always be small restaurant/club gigs that can only afford a solo musician. There will always be keyboard players.

What probably will change is the choice of material being performed. Lord knows what the young kids of today will want to hear when they are seniors based on the majority of what is referred to as music today. "Gee, I'm starting to sound like and old fart. Actually I consider myself stuck in limbo between old fart and young whipersnapper, but that's another thread."

While I mentioned in a prior post above that it would be cool to have an all-inclusive program running on a touchpad PC, the reality is, give me a keyboard with a decent piano sound and a microphone and I'm fine. Add a drum machine and that's even better. Throw in a set of bass pedals and I'm a trio.

Many of the arranger keyboard owners, in the U.S anyway, are holdovers from the home organ days; others have just given up on bands and found another way to produce the sound of a full band via the arranger. I do think that for arrangers to survive for the upcoming players there needs to be a shift in marketing. Another thread pointed out how arranger keyboards can hold their own against workstation keyboards (I think you started it). That's fine for us to discuss it here, but what good will it do? We already know! I take the opportunity whenever possible to suggest looking into an arranger/workstation when on pro keyboard (non-arranger oriented) forums. If manufacturers want to continue to sell arranger type instruments, then they need to focus more on current genres of music, make them look more professional, i.e. drop the plastic cases, colored buttons, and labels like swing, waltz, country, etc. for blank buttons that are programmable to whatever the player desires. In other words, change the stereotype of what an arranger keyboard is. It's funny to me that some of the same folks that look down on an arranger keyboard are the same people who go out as a single and play along with pre-recorded tracks from an mp3 player. There isn’t any difference, other than the fact the many of those folks are playing guitar, which in itself is perceived as much cooler than a keyboard.



Years from now Dave the music these new class of seniors will like wasn't made on a keyboard....as is many of the songs we hear today...entertainers will have to play rap, hip hop just as they do today ...only their audiences will be in the 80's.....DJ's will rule the assisted living centers for sure........dont worry we wont be here to see that.