I have had a hard time justifying this for years, why, I don't know except I am self taught and people thing I am fairly good for an old hacker. Times, they are a changing. I remember playing my new B3 at lounges in the sixties, with my drummer, and dance floors were full. I started soloing at clubs and was the first to have a Rhythm Ace. Great fun.

Today I play for a crowd that is the same age, but i'm not. consequently, I need music from the 60's to 80's, at least, and I have great Tune 1000 files that are perfect on the Pa4X, as they show me the chords and melody line. I easily mute what I play, and change keys.

I guess my problem is one of conscience. My audiences really like it, but I feel I am cheating somewhat with song specific backing, even though I am fully playing.

I need to know I am not a fraud doing this. How honest is that?

Dnj. I fully agree with your answer, you beat me to the reply.

.....Cheating would be miming and pretending to play. ie actually contributing nothing....

Although I prefer the flexibility of styles every once in awhile I'll come across a tune that's hard to re create using auto accompaniment.

Sometimes you need song specif bass lines, drum parts, or stops and starts that are hard to do with styles. You'd may be surprised how many songs that sound like simple 4/4 will throw in a measure of 2/4 (the quirky 2 count) Songs like "Purple Rain" and "Pretty Women" come to mind. Many Korgs and Ketron keyboards have a reset botton for instances like that so the beat doesn't get turned around.

Another thought: Although you may have more control with styles, it can actually look visually fake form an audiences perceptive. When playing with styles your left hardly has to move at all to generate full sounding accompaniment. When playing over backing tracks you are able to play full two handed piano style accompaniment that maybe be too complex for the auto-accompaniment on an arranger keyboard to recognize.

There's pro and cons to both auto-accompaniment and backing tracks. No need to limit yourself to one or the other.