What appalls me is the fairly constant putting down of other musicians as never being good enough...

To be quite frank, most of the musicians I've played with in live bands easily outshine most on here. Most of them can improvise well (can't remember the last arranger piece posted here that was much more than a rote recitation of the melody, certainly can't remember the last decent solo), most of them were at least as professional as anyone else here, and yet we have this semi-constant theme about how proud we all are, replacing them with a machine that doesn't sound one iota as good as them. Greed wins out over art, every time.

There isn't one of us here that, to be frank, probably sounds better as a solo than they did in a full band, but everyone sure THINKS they do. Bad news, guys... unless you were in a terrible band, you don't sound anywhere NEAR as good.

That people will still get up and dance to you, and enjoy the show is no proof of superiority. People will clap for a trained monkey, too! The sad fact is, the only reason we are getting gigs as solo's with arrangers is we are willing to undercut our fellow musicians, fire them, and make up some kind of BS that things were never better. And greedy club owners and restaurateurs are just fine with that...

Personally, I am seeing more and more bands that are using MP3's to do all the keyboard parts. And, you know what? You can hardly blame them... Having been told in no uncertain terms how some of us feel they are dead weight, unreliable, poor personal hygiene, whatever BS excuse you can come up with to assuage whatever degree of guilt you feel about firing them to make more money for the club owner (no way is he paying little ol' you what he paid the full band) and a bit extra for you, they have every right to turn the tables on us.

Bottom line... we opened the door. Keyboard players were the first with the technology to replace all the other musicians. Trouble is, of course, now they have the technology to replace US..! We showed no solidarity when we got the power, who can blame them now?

At the end of the day, what is music? Is it a few people playing together, or is it one person and a laptop? Or an arranger? Because, if it is the latter, better watch out. There is precious little difference between a singer with an arranger, and a singer with a laptop and a bunch of karaoke MP3's. And, who knows..? The singer with the laptop might undercut YOU.

We've painted ourselves into a corner, and I'm not sure we realized the consequences when we started this trip. The sad fact is, we are no more special, talented, or indispensable than any other 'musician'. We can ALL be replaced.

So, next time you feel like telling us about how bad the musicians you played with were, and how good you feel about getting rid of them and no-one in the audience cares one way or the other, I only hope you find yourself in THEIR shoes one day. I wonder what you will say about who replaces YOU!



Please, let's not pretend that this wasn't posted. I can go back and find a dozen more if you need them.