"Well...I'm not into arrangers"
Uh, Shboom, did you notice the title of the forum? That's like going to a NE Patriot game and saying you're not into football, and the players aren't really that good anyway. But at least you could watch the cheerleaders.
Actually, a lot of the musicians around here look down on arranger players too. They usually look down from the audience though, while they tell themselves that with the help of four or five guys, and by undercutting my price, they might steal my job.
Hate to tell you how many "band" jobs I turn down because I don't want to take a cut in pay. And very few weeks go by without a guitar player or bass player or drummer telling me "if you ever need some help, give me a call".
Mercy, I hope more of you guys don't start playing arrangers. That WOULD be competition.
On a related matter, I've found that most trained piano or synth guys CAN'T play an arranger in the manner it is supposed to be used. They can't seem to keep the left hand still enough to just play chords. Not that that's good or bad, it's just an observation. It's truly two totally different ways of making music. I can play anything with the right hand, but my left hand only knows chords. . . and pitch-bend wheels, and fill, break, intro, ending buttons.
Now let's talk about the guys who use sequences all night long instead of playing.

DonM

[This message has been edited by DonM (edited 03-25-2005).]

DonM...
I wasn't taking a shot at arrangers. Hell I've got associates that play them, and play them very well. My response was more towards Gary's question of time between songs, which I think I addressed.
In hindsight, maybe I should have just left my comments at that.

..Sorry...didn't mean to ruffle any feathers.
...Play On....

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...shboom

my brother is a semi pro musician and producer. He uses the Triton Extreme and looks down his nose at arrangers. But when he plays my keyboard he keeeps coming away with great ideas to write songs....but he doesnt like arrangers...when he plays he struggles to keep time because the arranger is exact in its timing and is unforgiving to indisciplined musicians....so my brother does not like arrangers....he loves the new features on the motif ES and oaysis, you know...the features and "patches" that trigger sounds , rhythms and phrases that can even follow your chords....but he doesnt like arrangers.....

Pretty soon the only difference between arranger keyboards and ordinary workstations will be the name!

No ruffled feathers here, my friend. I just have a rare night off. My wife is home from the hospital and asleep. The kids are out of town, the basketball game is over, all the normal people are asleep.
As far as the time between songs, it totally depends on the venue. I play mostly high-end supper clubs and private parties. They expect me to interact and talk to the folks between songs. The majority of what I do is requests and I have to give them time to bring me those nice tips to play "their" song.
I like the idea of having the audience under my control. I can make them dance, or make them sit down, make them drink or even make them leave. Sometimes!
DonM

O.T.
I'm glad to hear Susan is home and hopefully doing okay.

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...shboom

"for giging SD1 really sounds like a bar band to me, while Tyros sounds almost too perfect like CD..."

That's it! The SD1 sounds live. The Tyros sounds like a CD. Nothing wrong with either one, just a preference. Maybe I'll get tired of the SD1. Maybe by then, there will be an SD2. Maybe I'll finally get my hands on something else--GEM, Korg--who knows. For now I'm still loving the SD1. I still have much to learn about it.
DonM

If they wanna dance then they should better go into a disco!!!
I'm a musician/composer and so I'm the one who shows the people how to use my own music.
If they wanna use my music in a wrong way I will easily stop with making music. I'm not the jasper of the spectators - I'm the jasper for my own.

If they wanna dance then a CD player is good enough for them ... those hobos (I'm so sorry for my opinion).

The fact is that playing with some musicians in a band is so much more difficult like playing alone as an arranger. All the actors have to play the right tunes in the right moment (timing) and all members have to have the right feeling at the same time. It's an 'all night long thrill' for the whole band...
Arrangers only push some buttons and the music goes on. What's difficult on it? It needs the same ability like using a CD player (okay, that's a little bit kidding - I know).
Otherwise the entertainer stands alone in front of the spectators. He won't get any 'help' from a friendly face - a with-contending (is it the right term?) musician.
Also an arranger doesn't need to share his income with other musicians.

I know that the most of you arrangers/musicians have to live with the money from gigs. So it's normal to do NOT wish to share this money. Otherwise IMHO a full band has a very much higher value as an arranger only pushing his buttons (like a CD player) because they are more heads working on the evening's success.
I mean that the musicians had to be payed per head and not per band.

Well, while I'm reading this again I notice that I have to explain some points:
1. I'm actually not playing dance music
2. I don't need to live from music until today
3. I strongly believe that music is an art - not a joke

Back to topic: So it's no problem to make longer pauses between songs (because of the keyborder who is hectically searching through his sound libs). There's a singer who can speak to the crowd, there's a guitar player who can play some tunes for the impatients, there's a drummer who can thunder the hall, ... there's so much more which can eliminate the boring pauses between the action parts - espacially when you're playing in a band.
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Greetings from Frankfurt (Germany),
Sheriff ;-)

[This message has been edited by Sheriff (edited 03-27-2005).]

Context: I'm in a duo playing covers only, me+drummer, both sing, I'm using a PSR3000 as a midi file player and keyboard. I've another keyboard and separate bass pedals too. As the drummer practiced like crazy with e metronome and consequently can play strict tempo properly then I dont use the arranger function very often.

Heres my slant on some of the points..

Dead time: If people are dancing "freestyle" numbers then 5 seconds is dead, they'll all sit down. Any more than 1 second gap and I get anxious! You can say "if you want this go to a disco" but from our audience feedback they much prefer live performance (even if that is "Live over a midi file") to a DJ. Also so many DJ's like the sound of their own voices so much that you can't hear the song half the time anyway! At smoochie time you might get away with bigger gaps. If the audience isn't dancing at all then chat all you like just to maintain contact. We sometimes deliberatly use a big gap to force the audience to take a break. Incidentally we were once asked by the owner of an establishment to stop playing popular tunes so the dancefloor would clear and allow the staff to serve the main course of dinner!

For strict tempo / ballroom stuff gaps aren't such a problem as it is always a good idea to tell the crowd exactly which dance you'll be doing next.

Also, as a covers band, we have to give the audience what they want. It's their party, not ours.

As a classically trained pianist I couldn't play an arranger for quite some time. But now I've retrained my left hand and brain to think chordally, its not a problem.

I forgot - we pick tunes "on the fly"