I know where you're coming from Bill....

And you are right, over here on european soil, moving from Holland to Germany to southern europe, the Balkan and all the way into the Arabic world and even into india, Arrangers are the deal..

For people that just want to replay the music they know so well, arrangers are obviously the way to to go.

I am not surprised to hear that the oldies can't handle the newer stuff like Ensembles, which allow you to actually play a whole orchestra with 4 fingers of your right hand... or just two instruments at the same time... playing ensembles as they are meant to be played surely requires skill and fast fingers..
However, the organ world part of the T5 they must all love, and thats why i do not understand why they would move back to the T4, layout of the 2 is pretty similar, so that can't be the problem.. They might just be getting old...

Back to the Yamaha trail, they build arrangers for former organs players, but they also build more expensive pianos with build arrangers and they sell very well to midrange families, its called the CVP series, and they look nice and are a showoff in the furniture department..
Synths are meant for people that create their own music, and i think Yamaha realizes that these people are moving to software solutions... and they currently have no clue how to pull them back to hardware synth workstations..

The big problem with Total arrangers is that they are way to expensive for the younger people, so they will never adapt.. if parents spend that kind of money, they will go for the piano solution... and young people with jobs are working to hard to even notice arranger keyboards, or are serious about their music and in general make different musical choices.. But thats another discussion



Did the dealers also tell you why they prefer to sell Yamaha instruments above all other brands? I think i know why, you can make more money from selling a Yamaha instrument then you can make from selling any other brand... combined with the great backup support they get from Yamaha over here in europe, that makes them want to sell Yamaha first and above all..