Then come to a small music store like mine, Kaye's Music Scene and you will see all the top arranger keyboards and the Motifs, Fantoms, Tritons and electric pianos. There are still many like me, trying our hardest to give musicians someting different then the big chain stores promote.
It's like going to a shopping mall here in Calilfornia. There are a ton of them and they all have the same stores, the same resteraunts, etc. etc.
When we shoppers stop supporting the small individual stores, whether music, hardware, camera, etc, and the specialty shops dissapear, then I will agree with DNJ that perhaps we will have little choice but to adapt to this new way of shopping and and being forced to buy what the few big stores will want you to buy because they don't have the sales force to be able to properly show and sell all the products but rather just the few most of these younger salespeople know how to use. This has been a sore spot since the chain stores have developed into such large players. Just look at the age of the average salesperson. I'm a 55 year old man who owns and loves running a music store, but do you think GuitarCenter or Sam Ash will higher many over 30 years old? I very much doubt it. And so, there lies many of the problems we confront in 2006. I sure wish we could go back to 1980 in the music store business. This decade was by far the most exciting and fun times in my 36 year history. There was only 2 guitar centers and Sam Ash was a few stores in New York.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California