MIKIMIKI, that's total BS! And you know it. I know some of the best musicians in this part of the world, many of which were Peabody trained, and a significant number of them now play an arranger keyboard.

I played a guitar and sang in local bars for 15 years, everyone thought I was damned good at what I did, but when arranger keyboards came into being, I jumped on that bandwagon and never looked back.

The vast majority of the players on this, and most other forums, ALL started out playing an individual instrument. Don Mason was a great trumpet player, he was first seat. He plays an arranger keyboard now - and you're trying to tell us that he and the rest of us are lousy musicians. That's total BS!

Additionally, the vast majority of us were in bands at one time in our musical lives. I had a 5 piece country band, Tony Madalone worked with a big band in New England, Donny Pesce played accordion with a band in NYC, Boo Hargis knows more chords than God and played in New Orleans with the best of the best, but by your analysis we're ALL mediocre or lousy musicians because we opted to go with an arranger keyboard.

Now, I can almost guarantee you that if a trumpet, violin, cello, etc... had a transpose button, it would be used by those individuals. And, there was a piano with a transpose function, but it was very limited in scope. And guitar players have a transpose function with their capo and it's used by some of the top entertainers you see on stage all the time.

Arranger keyboards are instruments, no different than any other instrument. However, unlike someone that just plays a single instrument, the arranger keyboard player must learn to emulate all the other instruments, and do it accurately and efficiently. An arranger keyboard player must be someone that is good at multitasking, and have the ability to perform dozens of tasks on the fly, frequently alone in front of a large audience. More often than not, he or she, must also be a proficient vocalist and not just a good musician. He or she must also be a front-man, someone that can interact with the audiences while performing.

Now, if you sincerely believe that arranger keyboard players are hack musicians, what the Hell are you doing on an arranger keyboard player's forum?

Nuff said,

Gary