This relates mainly to the western market as the Asian market is quite unique.

The home organ was taken over by the arranger keyboard which started off as a single keyboard that used the easy play features of home organs, and then by the mid 90s morphed into what we know today as the arranger keyboard.

Currently we have 3 main home organ manufactures still in business (Bohm, Ringway & Wersi) which are selling instruments with no problem at all, with most of them being constantly updated with new features, sounds, etc. There is also a buoyant used market with some fantastic instruments at great prices.

Currently we have 3 main arranger keyboard manufactures (Ketron, Korg & Yamaha), Ketron has a small market share but seems to be going along nicely with there unique instruments, Yamaha is the big boy, still producing both high end and mid range keyboards, Korg is mainly focussed on high end keyboards, with their mid line not being updated for ages, also the latest high end instrument has less feature than the instrument it replaced and updates are very spasmodic, (The question a of people are asking is "Is Korg still committed to arranger keyboards?") as there doesn't seem to be much movement there, plus talking to dealers the used market is not as good as it was.

Overall, although niche, the home organ market seems to be more positive than the arranger keyboard market, which brings me to the question in the tile, "Going forward do you think the arranger keyboard market will outlast the home organ market?"

NOTE: This also has to be put into the perspective that most youngsters now just do music on apps via phones and iPads rather than actual physical instruments.

I will also post this question in the home organ section of the organ forum, so as to get views from both sides.

Look forward to your opinions.

Bill

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…🎹

I've posted on here before that given the state of technology, every single electronic keyboard instrument should have rudimentary arranger capability, such as an auto bass chord where a single note can trigger a full major chord and bass note. We're well past the point where it's a mechanical or electrical NECESSITY to press three or four keys and a pedal note.

Specifically, if Roland are out of the arranger market for good, they should imbue their MIDI controllers with Chord Intelligence and/or place their Chord Intelligence in the public domain so that it could be incorporated into tablet apps, etc. As a reminder Roland's system doesn't penalize you for playing all the notes. But it makes life much easier for those who never learned how to do so!

The 1 finger chord accompaniment came out in the 70s to make home organs easier to play, before moving onto the serious stuff, it is not new or unique to the arranger keyboard.

Bill

The thing is, Ted, most modern keyboards. DO have a chord and bass capability in their often very elaborate arpeggiated sections. The main difference between them and arrangers is that there is no interpretation of the notes played and substitution with a regular chord. They simply arpeggiate the notes that you PLAY…

So I’m afraid you are still up against it, Ted! Maybe one day you will quit fighting an uphill battle and simply spend a bit of time to learn to actually play chords? It is honestly an awful lot easier than trying to persuade keyboard manufacturers, who would gain a mere handful of extra sales with the feature, to spend a fortune on redoing their operating system.

You could have quite easily been extremely fluent with chords, if you had not spent the last 10 years that you have been bitching about different one finger systems, and spent those 10 years on learning to merely finger the chords! 🤣🎹❤️