… First paid job 60 years ago. My experience pretty much parallels Don’s, started with a band, vocals consisted of OOO AAAHHHHs. To this day, my musicianship is still lacking, but I learned a long time ago how to entertain, make folks feel good. I don’t remember ever having stage fright or feeling nervous. It was easy in the beginning, most of the tunes consisted of three chords and what we used to refer to as “the Blue Moon chords” ( 1-6-2-5). We also worked out of the combo-orks books and fake books. In the ’50’s, most accordion/keyboard players just mashed chords to emulate the big band horn sections, solos strictly adhered to the written melody line with a flourish now and then. I still enjoy gigging, I have a good time and that seems to influence listeners. I have a very hard time playing at home, (so, I don’t practice enough - not a good thing). I need to perform in front of people and play off listeners’ responses, or what I perceive as a their response. Hopefully, Someday I’ll be as good a musician as most of the members of this forum … I’ll start practicing on Monday … errrrr, maybe next Monday. I will confess that I don't think I'd be working at all if it were not for the arranger keyboards and modules.