Chas, these folks call me their friends, and many have turned to me for technical assistance over the many years I have known, though it be only over the Internet and the various forums. A few, however, I have talked with over the telephone, which at times was quite difficult due to my lack of knowing their native languages, but we managed to communicate.

As to what makes their arrangements wonderful, IMO, is the incredible creativity they bring forward to produce these beautiful sounding musical masterpieces. Yes, often they are using onboard styles, free-play styles, such as the Etheral Movie style and many others available from Yamaha vast collections. I have only used a few of these styles personally, but I know of several forum members that produced incredible arrangements using them, and working in combination of the variations and OTS setting voices. These are no drums or bass with these styles, therefore, you must rely on your playing abilities and your creativity.

Having played the piano as a youngster, then switching to a 6-string acoustic and later to a Yamaha 12-string acoustic guitar, then adding an in throat hole pickup to the 12-string and a 100-watt Crate amp, I had a lot of fun, but what really got my creative juices flowing was being able to get into the heart of an arranger keyboard and explore all it's musical opportunities. Guess, in that respect, I also became a geek as well. I could not learn enough, and to this day, I still discover really neat things that you can do with an arranger keyboard that cannot be accomplished with any other instrument.

Additionally, just having fun playing was not enough for me. I truly enjoyed being on stage, playing as an OMB entertainer, to audiences varying from just a dozen or two at a small, living room party, to thousands at the Maryland State Fair Grounds in Timonium, Maryland where the state put on a senior event. To me, this was an exciting time in my life, I met so many wonderful individuals, and became good friends with many of the other talented, professional, musicians that performed there as well. Unfortunately, at age 81, I attended many of their funerals as one by one most have passed away. Fortunately, the few of us that are still alive keep in touch on a weekly basis and have done so for decades.

I still sit at the arranger a couple hours a week, just to try out different, new features I had not discovered over these many years. And, as I have stated many, many times, from what I have seen, only a few individuals have taken the time explore the many features and options available to them in their arrangers.

All the best,

Gary