Ted, I think your opening 2 sentences shed a lot of light on the targeted market for arranger keyboards. I have two grandsons aged 13 and 15 (I think). The oldest takes piano lessons and the younger is into a variety of instruments. He has a low-end arranger keyboard (more like a synth with some basic arranger features), a tenor sax (lessons 2xweek), trumpet (plays in both the school orchestra and the jazz band), and guitar (his favorite - this week anyway, which he plays in a school rock band ). NEITHER of them seem to have ANY interest in, nor have I ever heard them use, the arranger features of the keyboard. Not even the drum rhythms (oh, did I mention, he also has a inexpensive electronic drum kit). For whatever reason (and I suspect Donny is right) the young folks just don't seem to be turned on by arrangers. To a degree, I think the manufacturers recognize this as well, which is why they can charge as much as $5k for a TOTL arranger KB, knowing full well that an 'under-funded' teen or young adult isn't going to buy one anyway .

As you may know, I am against giving kids auto-accompaniment keyboards as 'starter' instruments and see no value in deliberately cultivating "future arranger players". I feel that it dis-incentivises kids from properly learning to play what most of us consider 'legitimate' instruments. If a kid learns to drive with an automatic (admittedly not a good example), he is not inclined to learn to drive a 'stick' later on.....and he may never have to (hence the bad example), but in the world of music, 'real' instruments far outnumber arranger keyboards and real sheet music gives far more information than a sheet out of a 'fake book'.

I agree with you on a lot of your points but judging by my grandkids and their friends, I don't think music is going to upstage video games, not anytime soon anyway. How many kids do you know that will voluntarily spend up to 6+ hours a day on their 'musical instruments'. Video games, up to 24hrs with short snack and bathroom breaks .

I would like to know from some of our non-American members from some of the more arranger-friendly countries, how their youth feel about arrangers (vs. synths/workstations/acoustic traditional instruments).

chas