Uncle Dave,
I see your point about your work, and that entertaining is your work
as an professional musician.
Also about that the amateurs having fun, also in your area, make a
very hard competition and also to get desent payed gigs.

I am not a "pro", not even a skilled musician, but believe it or not,
I quit "gigging" for weddings, restaurants, local dances etc. nearly
10 years ago.
And what do you think was the major tool who made it possible for me
to do all those week-end jobs, yes sir, the Auto Arranger KB!
(And of course two of my friends who play guitars ang sing very well)
Give me a piano or whatever, and I propably could not accomp a simple
common singalong in a desent way!

By rebuilding and tweak the styles, we did it our way, and the final
result was just as good (or bad) that people want us back, and 90% of
the contracts for more "gigs" we got by people who was guests in those
arrangements, or by people who had heard about us by others.
We did perform a lot of "gigs", but since we all have our regular
occupation to take care of, and that fact that we missed about every
week-end that we could share with our familys, now we only meet now
and then to have fun and and "jam-sessions".

My point is, that I guess for the "pro's" we also was a kind of
"pain in the ass", when signing jobs who might be given to them if we
was'nt there.
Even if I did a lot of work to make the accomp as good as I could do,
I only played the left hand chords, played some simple solos and pushed
on the nessesary buttons. Cheated as good as I could, that's it.
We had fun, and most important of all, people on the floor had fun.
And they did'nt care less if we was "pro" or not,believe me.
If it was'nt us, there where others, and now it is also possible for
those who have a lot of midifiles, the equipment to playback and sing
along, and they do, really, and here we go again... karaoke.

What really make me fustrated about fake/cheat or not, is when you watch
a national broadcast on TV, it is a competition among several bands or
performers, and not one of the actors play or sing live, then it's cheating.
Better play it on the radio............
GJ
_________________________
Cheers 🥂
GJ
_______________________________________________
"Success is not counted by how high you have climbed
but by how many you brought with you." (Wil Rose)