Let us not forget Irving Berlin, and his sliding action Steinway (is it still on display opposite Carnegie Hall at the Steinway showroom?). Here's a guy that wrote some of the best tunes ever, and he could only play well in the one key...

The trick is to mitigate your weaknesses, not display them proudly and say 'I could use a transposer and sound MUCH better, but I choose not to, because I am a REAL musician!'.

BTW, Russ, what do you do when the singer IS the bandleader, and wants to do things in strange keys (and you are subbing for the night)...?

Me, I do what it takes...

In that case...me, too!


R.

I can't stand so many agreeing with me, and the fact that so many of you unashamedly admit to using a transposer makes it impossible for me to thumb my nose at you when you look down your nose at me. So from now on I am no longer going to use my transposer, I will have it removed and replaced with an espresso maker.
Fueled by the caffeine, I will play only atonal music. 12 keys were 11 too many for me, that's why I used a transposer. Now I realize even 1 key is too many. no more keys!

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Miami Mo

I think it's time to start using the under-utilized microtuning section on our arrangers. 12 keys is WAY too few (especially for a few 'singers' I know! ), and microtuning could easily double that number...!

OK, I'll "fess up". I've never even touched the transpose button on a keyboard, and, more than once, suffered the consequences.

I'm going to break out my seldom played SD-5 this afternoon (still prefer my 15 year old MS-60's)and try it out this afternoon.

Russ