In the Netherlands the Demo's were not only
played in Musicfairs but in many more fairs.
In Furniturefairs and in Home and Garden-
fairs and what so ever. The first time I saw and heared Peter Baartmans was on a small shopkeepers(of all kinds)fair. On this kind of fairs many people got interes-
ted in arrangerkeyboards and E-organs.
Those shopkeepers worked very hard and the
demomusicians were very good and knew every
level ot there instrument.They did this many years and it worked and now there are
many keybaordplayers in our country.
Another point could be that these demo's are and were instrumental. The demoplayers
do not sing . Only when they explain the
vocoder they sing.
Later the shopkeepers introduced the demo-
playing in there shops in the same way.
There is nothing wrong with a singing en-
tertainer but at a demo the only thing that really matters is the instrumental quali-
ties and as just one of the items the vo-
coder.
A demoplayer should know all the levels of
his (her) instrument.

"Buy one get one free"...works here..

From what I see of it around these parts, North America needs to get past guitars.

Just about any given pub/lounge with 'live' music has a solo guitar act invariably using the same old midi files. They all do Brown-Eyed Girl, Margaritaville, Sweet Caroline, etc., ad nauseam, and they all sound identical.

OK, I know the argument goes that they're giving the customer what they want - but you'd never guess it, judging by the non-reaction of the punters. Non-reaction, of course, is the direct result of everything being so predictable, so numbingly boring and, over the course of four 40-minute sets, eventually soul-destroying and room-clearing.

For my money, arranger keyboards shine. So why aren't us arranger guys replacing the guitar-in-hand-man. Mainly because your average bar/lounge owner has had such a steady diet of this mediocrity over the years, his brain is addled to the point that he won't take a chance on anything other than that to which he's been conditioned. Sad, but true.

I don't suppose too many bar/lounge owners get anywhere within a thousand miles of this forum but just in case there are one or two lurking, give us keyboard guys a try. Lord knows, you don't fill your rooms with what you've got right now.

I'm totaly up for that. even most keyboard styles have guitars playing in them, it's kinda hard to find a style without some kind of guitar, even thou it's not a real one, it pisses me off... Even Midi files full of guitars... I'll probably will change my User name to:AntiGuitarist, even thou i have 2 guitars at my house(and 2 keyboards Both Arrangers).