You know, I hear something similar to what Uncle Dave has posted from a lot of musicians. They tell me snide things like, "I try to keep things REAL"... in other words, they play as much as they can live and rely on arranger/midi etc. as little as possible. Some guys are so paranoid about sounding "mechanical" that they go to the lengths of multitrack recording themselves playing at home and use MP3 files on stage rather than risk using midi sequences that sound stiff. And telling people to turn off their machines and just play has a certain nobility to it, and as a pianist I do play only piano now and then myself. But this IS an arranger keyboard forum, or so the sign on the front door says, and I sometimes feel that what we're lacking isn't musicianship but digital virtuoisty and the self-confidence to take ourselves and our audiences into the future. Just as certain artists spend a lifetime developing the skill to be virtuosos on their instruments, I rarely see people becoming virtuosos with digital instruments and the latest in arranger keyboards in particular. Isn't the point to express ourselves? So why can't we use the full resources of modern keyboards to express ourselves like we can when we turn the accompaniment off? Is the problem in the arranger patterns or sequences that we use? If so, why don't we alter, humanize or reconstruct them so they don't act as a turn-off to us? Isn't it worth the time and effort, or do we appear to be faking something if we use our instruments to their fullest? Are musicians who use arranger or sequenced keyboards the "professional wrestlers" of music or something in the sense that we are petending to be something we aren't? We certainly see in the lukewarm reviews of pro arranger keyboards how little respect the mainstream musicians seem to have for these instruments, yet I wonder, how can we expect others to respect what we do if we don't respect the instruments ourselves? It seems to me here in the 21st century that there should be tolerance and maybe even the need for 21st century musicians: those who are stepping into new territory with the latest in music technology. This is both a commentary and an open question: why did we buy these state-of-the-art instruments only to wind up not using them fully or selling them, as in Uncle Dave's case with his PSR-2000? Is digital arranger virtuosity a joke, a naive notion, or is it just that the instruments themselves are not sufficiently advanced enough yet to allow us as musicians to realize what we hear in our mind's with them? I feel that we are poised to leap into a new era of music and performance capability, yet we seem to be resisting the momentum that technology is giving us... why is that and what must we do to overcome it?