Thanks for debating with me bill. It’s always a pleasure to chew the cud with you.

So what you are now saying is that your argument about the decline or death of arranger keyboards is limited just to the west? And that in the main old fogies purchase these keyboards . They will soon become a niche market like the home organ was and that most arrangers are in the closet and forsaken by young people who are now making music on their phones ? Have I summarised your assessment appropriately?

Granted , that in the west high end arranger keyboards are in the main purchased by people who can afford the huge ticket price . These are almost by default likely to be older people with higher disposable incomes. This is the exact same situation it was with home organs . By the way, both home organs and arrangers are by definition “niche products “ . Always have been and always will be .

However that only accounts for discrete purchases off the high street . I would hazard a guess that for each high end Genos unit purchased on the high street, there are multiple psr / Casio ordered online ( therefore the age of the purchaser is unknown unless the dealer /retailer has found some way to determine the purchasers age ) .

Secondly when schools order arrangers they tend to order them in multiples of 10 - 20 at a time . ( my sister is a head teacher ) . So just in terms of units purchased , I am not persuaded that the majority of sales are from old gogies although this might be true for discreet high end purchases .

As for kids making music on their phones rather than playing a real keyboard , wouldn’t that same argument (if it were true ) apply to any real musical instrument ??? Or do you think young people are playing guitars and trumpets and saxophones and oboes in real life but when it comes to their arranger keyboard they pick up theirs phones instead ?

That makes no sense bill .

And lastly , I teach keyboard to 15 regular children from age 7 to young adults 20
Years of age . I also teach music to my choir of over 45 children and have done that for the last 10 years and so have worked with literally hundreds of young people over that time .

I have one daughter and 7 nephews and nieces . I have not yet seen any of them make any music other than record their voices on their phones . I must have not yet met the right young people I guess ?

Bill I am not burying my head in the sand. I am just consciously assessing what has been said over the years against what I see based on my own personal experience / observations and what I know from my own research. I am not persuaded that arranger keyboards will die any time soon. Especially as the low to mid range become much more feature packed with high quality sounds .

And what it really boils down to is what you define as “ dying” and “ soon” . I can remember having a similar conversation on this forum 10 years ago. 10 years in the life-cycle of any product is pretty significant and yet here we are all still licking her lips and anticipating the next iteration of the next arranger keyboard..


Edited by spalding1968 (03/22/18 06:35 AM)