[quote=Dnj]

I find your way of mixing up the OMB/Track singing/DJ quite interesting... I would love to pick your brain sometime!

Oh, and thanks for putting the extra pressure on me and Lydia if we host the next one ...

Personally, I am glad I retired and left the gigging scene. Over the past several years, there were signs that it was time to move on.

It's not only the arranger player/singer that is being phased out due to the change in music, audience and venues...it's singles (guitar/singer/smf player) and duos (2 guitars/singers/smf player) that are also a dwindling presence on the stages in clubs.

Solo singers singing over mp3's and smf can't provide enough vocal variety for today's demanding (and younger) audiences.

DJ's will soon be the sole solo acts in bars.

Nowadays, I play and record for personal satisfaction only, although I do make CD's for friends and still enjoy making custom styles for other Tyros4 users. At 65 I'm glad to be out of the loop, which was becoming smaller and being replaced by new loops of performers.

Looking back, I had a great run, both as a keyboard player in various groups as well as a solo arranger player, so I have no regrets.

I agree with Donny...the audiences for solo arranger keyboard performers are being reduced drastically...even the players in their 50's feel the difference.

I doubt if the arranger keyboard itself will die away soon, but its use in stage performances certainly appears to be less than before, and its use for hobbyists and home player/song writer/composer will increase (as it will for their cousins, the Workstations).

Change is, and was, inevitable.

Ian

....I'll probably play the same style of music that day.

....in reality computers put us real musicians out of work in many ways.

Donny, I know most of the DJs and KJs down here, and most, at the very best, work a few weekends a month - that's it. Big deal! I can work every day of the week, two to three times a day if I were 10 years younger, and I can make a full-time living playing for the older crowd. Not everyone in the older set is in a nursing home, assisted living center, or retirement community. Many of them live at home, love to go out and dance, love to party, and guess what, THEY HAVE THE MONEY TO DO IT. The youngsters don't have any money, they piss it all away on I-phones and other similar forms of electronic gadgets, and from what I've seen, they, realistically, don't have fun. They can't get out of their tiny little cellular telephones long enough to know there is a real world revolving around them. It's amazing how little they really know.

As for weddings, Hell, if you're lucky you may get one or two a month and the pay rate is the same as it was 40 years ago - do you really think that you can live on what you made 40 years ago. Same holds true for the nite clubs, restaurants, bars, etc... For me, I'll stick with the seniors. They're not sitting there with their noses buried in an I-phone. They're having fun, and they're enjoying the kind of music we played at the Jam.

Ironically, the place where I performed today has little or no cellular service. It's way out in the boondocks, the nearest tower is probably at least 20 miles away, and the young girls that work there just about go nuts because they cannot text or receive telephone calls on their cellular telephones. When I fired up and did Hot Hot Hot, they had a conga line going around the room and out into the halls. They loved it, I got some hugs and kisses from very young girls that were built like Barbie Dolls, and I even got few to sing some Patsy Cline Songs.

So, from my perspective, you can have all those young people jobs - every damned one of them. I'll stick with the old folks - we remember how to have fun, and they're more than willing to pay for their fun. And, as I've said many times in the past, I'm not a musician, not a DJ, not a KJ, just an entertainer. I get paid very well to entertain people and that's why I'm still around - even after all these years.

Good luck on making a living on all those youngsters,

Gary