And now let's get back to our regularly scheduled topic that Chas originally posted shall we target audience...?
before this goes really south..

I'm with Mel. I am the target.

Eddie

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

Hi Chas,
both I think really.
The tech savvy musicians have to keep abreast of the changing technology,
us ol’ coots with too much money , probably don’t have all that much trouble adapting to the new technology every couple of years or so, because we tend to keep changing our keyboards when something new hits the market and changes are usually incremental.

I’ve ended up back to where I was 20/30 years ago.
Piano was my first love. ( not that I was much good at it). I really only bought an arranger in the hope of being able to do some backing tracks.( Midi files in those days were something like $30 ea. and limited in content and availability) I wanted try and fill out my piano playing ie have a fuller sound.
Never really managed to make it happen. I was a total reader, couldn’t work out what to play unless it was in front of me, so never really worked out how to combine the two. Unfortunately my pianos had to be sold and keyboard technology became my passion for next 20 years.

Few months back I became interested in piano again after a post from Uncle Dave. Really only bought my little P121 piano as a controller for my sx900 , and also figured it might be a great way to build up finger strength again ( hadn’t touch a keyboard in over a year after my accident) .
Then up popped one of Donny’s u tube clips from a company called Pianote. The young lady doing the demo was bubbly and quite interesting .Thought I’d give the exercise a go.
Ended up signing up for a 6 months course, learning a heap of stuff, no longer 100% reliant on having to read a piece of music, note for note, teaching me to think for myself. My playing is still very basic , but I’m having more fun playing my crummy little $600 piano than I ever had playing my last 3 Korg keyboards.
Next step , how to do those arranger backing tracks that I wanted to do all those years ago as an accompaniment for my piano ( non ) skills. Haha. Left hand arpeggio chord songs didn’t quite lend themselves to split arranger mode playing.

P.s I have Uncle Dave and Donny to thank for my new musical path.

Rikki, don't praise either of those two guys; they can't handle it . Just kidding, every once in a while they hit the mark .

A very nice, well thought out post, as usual. I think your story may be more common than you might think. I also think you're probably right about the manufacturer's targeted market. However I still don't think they are even trying to reign in the youth market. A clue is their virtual absence in the big box showrooms (Musician's Friend, etc.) and the lack of sales training and customer seminars. I still think that if Europe, Asia, and South American markets didn't prop up sales, Arrangers would die a slow death (as some here have predicted).

chas

You are correct Chas.

There are those moments while sitting at an arranger keyboard, trying to get the perfect sound and style, tweaking, this, tweaking that, when I think back to the organ days of just sitting and playing. I now, on occasion, take a break from the buttons, and just play the arranger using full keyboard mode.

To answer your question, I do think, number one, Arrangers are more marketed to "Q-Tip" Home Players. with one man band Pro's a close second, and not far behind them is the beginner /average player looking to learn and enhance playing keyboard music. Therefore all that, makes an Arranger a near perfect, all around, one fits all, keyboard.

Hi Chas,
Inclined to think probably the same over here, though haven’t had the luxury of browsing a music store for many years.

Even back in the 90’s when I actually worked part time in one of the biggest so called pro music stores, we mainly sold band and studio equipment , not an arranger in sight until the korg i3 came along.
I don’t think too many stores actually kept arranger keyboards on the showroom floor let alone in stock. One exception was the Technics dealer.

For the younger generation there’s probably better ways of recording music than via an arranger keyboard, depending on the type of music they’re into , of course.
They’re trying to include styles that might appeal to the younger generation, but makes one wonder if they’re actually succeeding.
Meanwhile some of us oldies are possibly getting peeved that we are not getting just say, more ballads, country, swing/jazz, Latin type styles,
styles that we used to get in abundance.