I think it’s a bit difficult to predict where things are going at the moment. The home organ market has already settled to what you might call its base level whereas the arranger market is only beginning to decline and contract. We have maybe another 20 years before it’s fair to make a comparison between how well the different types of keyboards have survived.

But I think the home organ is in a unique position of being able to be played fully without any automatic accompaniment or arranger features whatsoever, whereas the arranger, usually just a single keyboard, no second manual or pedals, is a lot harder to be the all in one instrument that the organ is.

The home organn has found its base of skilled players, I think the majority of the one finger crowd are still primarily arranger players, and in 20 years time, will still arranger players. For one thing, the MASSIVE price difference between arrangers and home organs is going to leave most one finger players still rocking the arranger keyboard. In 20 years time, perhaps the more skilled players will rediscover the two manual and a set of pedals approach. But unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around on an overpriced piece of furniture, if you want to make music on a budget, the arranger will be around for a long time.

One thing we have yet to see, but it is inevitable in the long run, is the use of powerful tablets to do all arranger functions. I think that is the future for the type once the major manufacturers stop producing single manual keyboards. Compared to the tens of thousands of dollars for a full organ, that low price may keep the type popular for a long time.

And, in the end, the home organ market is still a tiny, TINY fraction of the number of people that have a little arranger in their house somewhere. They have a very small but very vocal echo chamber to make it seem like it is more popular, but I guarantee that, for everyone that has an old Lowery or Elka sitting in the living room, there are THOUSANDS of people that have a PSR lying around somewhere. It’s just that most of them don’t spend much time on forums discussing registrations and listening to old Klaus Wunderlicht records!

The tradition of the two manual and a set of pedals organ predates “home organs“ by many hundreds of years. It is going to be a very long time before we know what the long-term future of automatic accompaniment is going to be…🎹