I sincerely believe all to this is cyclic. I can clearly remember times in my life when every kid was taking piano lessons and there was a piano teacher in every neighborhood. What happened?

I also recall when lots of kids were taking trumpet lessons in school - those days are gone forever. Same was true with trombone, which my grandson is learning how to play.

The local music store here in my town has 5 arranger keyboards in stock, and they have all been there for quite a while. The rest of the store, which is immense, holds more than 500 guitars, a similar number of amps and mixers, a couple dozen drum sets, and more accessories than anyone can imagine. Additionally, they offer lessons for all instruments, the vast majority of students, though, take guitar lessons.

Remember when keytars were the craze?

I wouldn't get upset about any of this, arranger keyboards, organs and electric pianos will still be readily available long after we are all dead and buried.

Gary

It is hard to understand the reasons why arranger keyboards are going down when I am so in love with mine.

John C.

Gary, I don't much disagree with the other statements in your post, but this one is just incorrect. I have seen many middle schools and high schools where there are students learning all the horns and woodwinds and are members of school marching bands, orchestras, jazz bands, etc. etc.
Fortunately, music studies are alive and well in most school systems ...

My grandson plays trumpet in his middle school marching band, guitar in his rock band and is about to join the jazz band on trumpet. He's also heavily into recording. From my perch, I'd say Tony is correct. Things don't seem too different from when I was in school. I played horn and trumpet in the school orchestra throughout high school.

chas

arrangers in the US have never been a big deal..

Europe allways has been atrranger country,
but even here its falling slowly

Many parts of south east asia and the middle east, is where the arranger is still going strong
Thats why korg has a middle east version
And Rolands EA7 is aimed at that market

China, biggest country in the world
Is more of a DP country
Europe is also slowly going that way

Many younger people trying to make music have no clue about musical theory
Dont even play an instrument these days
they just use mouse and tablet and some hardware

In the western world the typical arranger is slowly dying
However, its fun to see more and more dig piano's sprouting arranger features
trough the ipad apps that come with them.

Worldwide digital piano sales are better then ever..

Here in the U.S. folks are more apt to buy a synthesizer or a stage piano than an arranger. I get it.

Still, one advantage with an arranger, folks with little or no keyboard experience can be playing songs in a short while.

Not sure that's an advantage WHEN MARKETING TO MUSICIANS; the general public, maybe, but not musicians. Despite arguments to the contrary, sales figures don't lie.

chas

Most pro musicians don't even know what an arranger kb is ......
just ask a few of them......they are just thinking toy casio kb sold in big box stores for $199.00 for kids....digital pianos and synths rule the roost on a pro stage just look around thats the way it is..
its the "Automaticness" and "Repetition" of an arranger kb that turns them off ......real musicians want to create music not operate an auto accompaniment machine....sad but true.

Guess my earlier post a couple of months ago fits in well here, at least this part:

"As to the second issue, public performing and entertaining, giggin if you like, I think the shift to different approaches is becoming more and more apparent and imho will ultimately phase out the arranger keyboard altogether. Luckily for most of us here on the forum we will probably not live to see the day, although……

As remarked by others the audiences these days , with the possible exception of folks in an old people’s home ,want to be entertained and do not really care whether the entertainer is actually playing his keyboard or just pretending for instance by using midifiles and adding the odd note here and there. Worse than that, more and more I visit places or occasions where there is no longer a keyboard but either a performer with an acoustic guitar ( amplified) which is great really, or just a performer with a mike, a good voice, a decent amp ( Roland Streetcubes are quite the thing here) and a stack of high quality Backing Tapes.

The advantages are obvious. Less gear to drag along, less efforts to make and prepare, you can’t go wrong with playing, your amplification can be very small and portable and your investment likewise. A wireless mike would be the icing of the cake but even with a decent wired mike you are okay. Only problem is the amount of dough required to invest in purchasing decent backing tapes in your vocal range. Mind you I am not saying this is something I welcome but it sure looks like this is going to be the future.

And the audiences ? They could not care less cause they want to be entertained. And they want to hear their favourite popsongs as close to the original as possible. And even with all of our songstyles ( in particular on the Yammies) we cannot get as close to the original than many of the current high quality backing tracks, see below.

So all in all not a rosy picture for the arranger keyboard I admit, unless of course you want to do with it what its name suggests: ARRANGE, that is get away from replicating the original popsong for the sake of a public performance but use it at home or in the studio to either arrange your own compositions or make new and refreshing arrangements for classic popsongs in a way that is not done with the Backing Tracks however superb and true to the original they may be"



John Smies

Chas, you’re quite right when marketing to musicians. However, as has been discussed ad infinitum, arrangers are targeted at the home player.

I’ve started a couple of folks with little musical or keyboard experience on arrangers. And, I may be doing a community ed. presentation on them.

Also, the school that I teach at periodically has a dozen or so basic arrangers to teach basic keyboard in their music class.

If students take to the arranger, many will move on to some sort of piano.