Nothing important, but the following scenario happens to me a lot. It happened again yesterday.
A keyboard player will hear me somewhere, and come up to talk afterwards. Of course they always want to know what kind of "synth" I'm playing. When I tell them, they have never heard of it. I then have to explain how an arranger works. It's best to tell them something like, "It's a specialized synth, with backing tracks that follow your chords in real time". Most react with something like "Wow, that must be really new techology".
Then they want to know the price, and I will quote them full list. This usually ends the conversation.
Recently one asked my opinion of a Roland Phantom, because he "wants to do like I do".

I told him I wasn't familiar with Phantom, but that if he really wants to do what I do, he has to get an arranger keyboard.
Sometimes these conversations end quickly, but often the guy really wants to know about arrangers.
In years past, they tended to turn up their noses at what I was doing. Lately the level of respect for arrangers seems to have gone up, probably in proportion to the advances in sounds and functions.
Yesterday I told a guy who's son lives in California to have him call George Kaye and be prepared for an education!
Get ready George.
DonM

I have run into this situation many times while performing live with the PSR-3000.

It seems the biggest problem facing traditional piano players with an arranger, is learning how to play chords in a more restricted area of the keyboard(when using split keybd)and keeping the hand still during performance.

Also "playing" the sounds in the style of the the instrument selected, rather than in a pianistic fashion, is sometimes an issue.

Synth and organ players seem to have less trouble wrapping their minds(and fingers) around the arranger use.

Ian



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Remember to leave good news alone.

Don ignorance flows from "where do you get those cassettes you play" to "wow that's some sound you get out of that box"
"Is that you singin'?"
You cant blame them playing the arranger on a "PRO" level takes years of experience playing thru the evolution of its existence with the thought process & mindset of becoming & performing as a total LIVE band all by yourself utilizing and playing all its parts as prescribed all at once......if you cant do that choose another hobby or profession or instrument to play.
I'll usually & vaguely give curiosity seekers & non believers a simple answer & hope they leave me alone after that.......its like asking a Doctor "hey how do you do that open heart surgery that looks easy"
Just be courteous and modest and smile.....because you know inside you got the goods......& they dont, they'll all have to pay their dues just like the rest of us, There are NO SHORTCUTS IN THIS GAME

I'm right there with you as a piano player it's tough to keep that left hand still. I also have my split point set at b2/c3. I need more real estate with the left hand.


Don, I too was one of those keyboard players a few years ago who had no idea what an arranger was. All I knew was when my wife bought me a $150 Casio keyboard as a birthday gift I said to her. Well, nice of you who needs this little toy when I got this $6000 grand piano sitting in the living room, why on earth would I need this keyboard. Well 4 years later a lot has changed for me including selling the grand that I rarely played anymore after getting into arrangers. Cool idea quoting them full list


Donny, I also get a kick out of the comments, what else ya got in that box!!



[This message has been edited by Stephenm52 (edited 01-12-2007).]

It happened to me on 'New years Eve' a guy at the end came up and introduced himself as a keyboardist, he'd been listening to me all night performing on my PSR3000 topped with an additional synth keyboard. I'm backing 2 vocalist's and adding backing vocals and playing in excess of 50+ numbers in original keys trying to add parts on top of the arranger to emulate the songs we played close to the original orchestrations , the guy asked where I got the arrangements from?
No arrangements 'mate' I said, I manipulate drum, bass and additional instruments loops via chording to match the song chords progressions of the originals, if I walk away form the keyboard so do the arrangements!...HE walked away looking very confused...but it was good to think that he thought he was listening to pre-recorded arrangements, he obvioulsy did'nt hear my mistakes!

Rgds
Noel J

I have to disagree a little... I think the Arranger keyboards are more popular than Workstations (especialy in countries besides U.S.), even keyboard manufactures are putting ther latest technology in Arranger keyboards, all the musicians that i know personally, most of them(~95%)use arranger keyboards, and think of a workststion as just something compeletly bizzare or a digital piano or something.
But if you take whole music industry in general, than we can say not "Arranger ignorance" but "keyboard ignorance" .

The U.S. is WAY behind in "arranger appreciation". Most U.S. "pros" still look down on them.
DonM

I had Casio keyboards back in the 80s so I have always appreciated arranger keyboards. They are really just a regular synthesizer combined with an AI driven MIDI sequencer that follows your playing. It's not really very hard to understand but I guess people that aren't familiar with them are mystified by them. I am actually puzzled why ALL synths don't come with arranger abilities because it probably doesn't cost the manufacturer barely anything to include it in the ROM. There is really no reason why the entire Yamaha Motif range don't all have the ability to have onboard arranger styles. I guess it is just a marketing decision.

Another factor is that veteran musicians still have a block on their shoulder against arrangers with that
"Your putting alot of musicians out of work playing that arranger thing" mentality which makes them hate OMB acts in general...... I say PHOOEY to that !

hi
could someone tell me what the diffrence is between an arranger keyboard and workstation keyboard and what kind of keyboard is a wersi pegasus and a tecknics kn6000
thanks
bill