One of the things that I realized early on in my entertainment career was that my playing ability was not that of a trained musician, and that my vocal ability would have to carry the load. Consequently, when I discovered arranger keyboards and moved away from performing with my 12 string guitar, I realized that the less was better when it came to style files and I rarely performed a song with a variation higher than "B" and rarely "C" or "D". This allowed me to bring my vocals to the forefront and place my learning emphasis on my voice. However, the arranger keyboard not only allowed me to do this, but additionally, perform using a variety of right hand instruments that would not have been available to me as a guitar player that also sang. The arranger keyboard opened a whole, new world of entertainer opportunities for me.

Now, as an entertainer, I quickly realized that no one was would be ringing my phone off the hook to hire me unless I looked at the business aspects of being an entertainer. In order to be successful, and make enough to cover my expenses and support my family, I would have to market myself, just like any other product. Some folks on this forum thought that word of mouth would be all that was necessary in order to get your name out there - NOT! It just doesn't work that way.

Like any successful business I first put together an advertising package. I used a presentation folder, one that allowed me to insert a photo on the cover, and inside, a cover letter containing testimonials from previous clients, a CD with a dozen songs that I recorded, additional photos, song list, and a list of popular holiday playing opportunities for special parties.

The cost of the package was about $2, and at the time, about $1 to mail it out to perspective clients. Just 7 days after mailing the package, I contacted the perspective client on the telephone, asked if they received the package and if they had a chance to listen to the CD. Most of the time, the answer was yes to both.

I then went about becoming a salesman and asked to meet with them in person, during which time I gave them a high quality pen and appointment wall calendar that I purchased from National Pen Corporation. I also had my copy of the same calendar with all of the booked dates, and showed them the openings that were still available. Most loved the pens and calendars, and more often than not, we would sit down and book them for the entire year.

After booking, I would then sit down and send them each a contract that listed all the dates they booked, have them sign a copy and return it to me in an SASE and retain a copy for their records. At this point, I had to become a booking agent.

The very first year of operating my entertainment business, I booked just over 220, one-hour jobs at $100 per hour. The following year, using the same techniques, I booked more than 450 jobs and raised my price to $125 per hour. Now, you are essentially a book keeper, must keep a detailed ledger of income and expenses, which would be later used to file your income taxes.

With that "Travlin' Easy" wall calendar hanging right in front of your customers every day, when a special party opportunity came up, I was usually the very first person they called. These included birthday parties, corporate parties, political fund raisers, and special holiday events. These events were often longer than 1-hour, and often ran 4 to 5 hours, during which time, I took a 5 minute break every hour. So, $500 for a 4-hour party made for a pretty profitable day.

For me, being an onstage entertainer, was the best job I ever had in my life. Not only was I making a good living, but I was able to establish a couple retirement accounts, buy a sailboat big enough to live on, and still make time for the family and having fun sailing Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic waters of the East Coast.

Like all good things, this eventually came to an end when my health was shot to Hell. My back gave out, my lungs gave out, and a few body parts were repaired and some, removed. Unfortunately, after more than 30 years on stage, at age 76 I was forced to retire. Fortunately, Social Security, in combination with my retirement accounts, allowed me to do this. The doctors said that given the lung disease I have, pulmonary fibrosis, I would probably make it for another 2 years, but doubted that I would see my 80th birthday. Well, if I make it to next October, I will be 82, and in late September Carol and I will celebrate 60 years of marriage. (Keeping my fingers crossed for both dates.)

So, this is my perspective on arranger keyboards, but strictly as an entertainer - not a professional musician. An old friend of mind, who was Peabody Trained as a pianist, Jerry Burns, once said to me "Musicians are a dime a dozen out there, and most never make a decent living. Good entertainers are a rare commodity, and most make enough to retire on, but never seem to get around retiring until they drop dead on stage."

Sorry about the rant,

Gary

Well Gary, as a do'er of good deeds, a giver of technical gifts, and a teller of tall tales for such a long time, I suppose you have earned enough forum capital as to be able to put up long posts that have absolutely nothing to do with arranger keyboards .

Well.....here's MY perspective. Music can be viewed as either a business or as Art. Because most of the people here are not professional performers, I suspect that most view it as Art. Consequently, wealthy megastars excepted, how well you do financially has little importance in discussions about MUSIC. I readily concede that a good businessman with mediocre talent will probably be more financially successful than a superbly talented musician who is a lousy businessman (you can see examples of that everyday ). That's one reason why, after recognizing my mediocrity early on, I chose another line of work .

Having said all of that, we still enjoy your tales of adventure, blueprints for success, free medical advice, and sharing of personal information. Heck, I bet any number of us ol' timers could easily write your autobiography. I AM proud of the one strong bond that we share, Religion .

Have a good day.

chas

Geeze, I thought it had everything to do with arranger keyboards, particularly using the lower registrations with less stuff in the accompaniment, therefore permitting your vocals to take the lead. At the top of this page it says "General Arranger Keyboard Forum" - not Musicians Forum.

As for the part about making a good living using an "Arranger Keyboard", I though I made some pretty good points as to how to approach this aspect. Guess I must have missed something in the posting guidelines.

Now, if you intend on writing my biography, I want a cut. 50/50 sounds fair to me.

Gary

Thanks for your perspectives and advice Gary. I was doing the "senior circuit" for years up until the pandemic. I will start inquiring again, but I've been busy enough with parties and bars.
But there some accepts of the seniors venues I miss, so hopefully that type of work will pick up again.

One question for you Gary - Since you are a good singer, did you ever consider using prerecorded tracks rather than bringing a keyboard to the assisted living and other senior venues that you performed at?

Here in the DWF area most of the senior entertainers generally are singers with backing tracks, or perhaps a guitar or sax, that also sing but mainly with tracks.

I think the advantages are, less stuff to set up, the performer can be more mobile and "stroll" and many would consider a prerecorded track to sound more professional than a "live" auto accompaniment.

Personally would never perform without a keyboard, perhaps I would consider it if I were a better vocalist, or played better guitar or a horn. Plus I am not a big fan of having to follow a pre recorded arrangement. I like to solo freely, make an arrangement longer or shorter if needed. But being "stuck" behind a keyboard can have limitation for an entertainer. I am just curious why you never went the backing track route, or did you ever consider it?

Hi Paul. I rarely used midi files, mainly because of the time constraints. The only time I used a midi file/backing tracks was when I wanted to stroll through the audience and sing to the ladies. For this, I sometimes used a midi file for the song "Fever". I was not really tied to the keyboard, because I used a Crown CM-311A headset mic and a wireless system that plugged into the mic's battery pack.

The wireless transmitter was the same size as a 12-gauge shotgun shell and a single AAA battery that powered it was good for about 12 hours. You could also use it on a handheld mic as well, but as you know, I loved the CM-311A mic because of the freedom it offered.

When I eventually found a style file that fit the song, I was able mute everything but the drum track and a finger snap on the second drum track, thus eliminating the midi file. No key changes necessary under these conditions. The style file was designed for the Pink Panther song, but with these modifications, it worked great for Fever. The best part was there were no time constraints to worry about.

Back when I was performing at the bars and nite clubs and playing my Yamaha 12-string guitar, I used a handheld mic on a boom stand for the first couple years. Seems like the mic was never in the right place to maintain eye contact with the audience, or you bumped it with the guitar or your chin. That's when I switched to a headset mic and never looked back. I still have that handheld mic, a Sennheiser E855 and it's a wonderful mic for vocalists. If I correctly recall, I think I sold my last Crown CM-311A to you upon my retirement.

All the best,

Gary

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail… 😂

There’s only one common thread at this forum. We all use arrangers. Not that we are all ‘entertainers’, not that we all sing, not that we all play professionally, not that we all sit alone in our bedrooms with headphones on, unwilling to force others to listen to our noodling… No, our only thing in common is that we own arrangers.

I sometimes wonder, when the focus of one’s life is to brand oneself an ‘entertainer’ and happily admit shortcomings in playing music, whether one engages much on forums that are specifically for ‘entertainers’, singers etc.? Or is it only here that we receive the benefit of your life’s direction?

There’s probably a forum somewhere where young singers with minimal playing skills want hard won advice about a career as a lounge and restaurant entertainer. Or maybe not, given how different the business is nowadays, and how utterly different making modern music is. But I wouldn’t know. I’ve never joined one of those forums. I wonder if you have?

My only interest is in using arrangers to make music, as one of the arsenal of different types of keyboards I own, and use for both professional use and home enjoyment. And I think the one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of playing just about everything with keys on it ever invented, from piano to accordion to pipe organs to electronic organs, from clavinets and Rhodes’, Wurlitzers, string machines, monophonic synths to polyphonic synths, from workstations to samplers to loopstations and virtual synths and yes, arrangers is…

None of them sound any good until you play them well. But the only one that can fool you into thinking they sound good when you don’t is the arranger!

It gets pretty hard to find a thread here that sooner or later doesn’t trot out the old ‘but I can’t play professionally so I use an arranger’ excuse. As if owning one of them somehow means that improving your playing is no longer necessary. I sometimes wonder if the admitted hours, days, weeks that some people admit to spending to find a workaround for not being able to play full chords or inversions would pay higher dividends is that time had been spent actually practicing the chords so you never have to worry whether a chord scheme gets dropped by a manufacturer, or you have to unlearn an ingrained habit so you can move to another manufacturer’s product!

And this goes across the board….

Sadly, there’s no silver bullet, weaknesses in your technique are only all too apparent to all but an audience that is barely listening to you. I am convinced that most of us waste most of the time necessary to fix basic playing errors worrying about styles, or sounds, or the necessities of figuring out the shortcuts that arrangers provide.

An hour a day. A half hour a day. Ten minutes a day. What can you afford..? How much are you already spending not playing, but figuring stuff out on your arranger? Spend as much on simply learning a new chord voicing. Spend as much on learning to bend and breathe like a sax player. Spend as much on two handed piano playing (and turn on your arranger’s Piano Mode). Spend as much on working on not rushing….

That’s time that will pay off for the rest of your life. Work on the minutiae of arranger operation only pays off until the manufacturer changes how they do things… and we all complain about how often that is!

An arranger gives the illusion of musical progress. The backing sounds better each generation of model. But without basic work on the stuff YOU play, there’s one thing that sounds as bad no matter how often you pay a fortune for a new arranger.

Playing better isn’t isn’t a ‘professionals only’ thing. It’s a ‘musician’ thing. And unless you are content to live out your life knowing you have to rely on being a great singer to cover up something you could have fixed in an hour a day, or 30 minutes a day, whatever, I think it’s worth the time and effort. Or one day, you might be penning a post explaining how, the less you played, the better you sounded! 🎹

Gary, we have talked that I am NOT an entertainer. I respectfully take exception to your contention that entertainers do better than musicians.

Live performance, studio work and writing/recording commercial videos generates at least six figures in income for me; really without trying.

Of course, I have the advantage of being involved in promotion, copy, film editing and that takes the pressure off the hourly rate we all seek.

I'm glad you did what you set out to do in your career.

Not sure I completely agree of your comparison of musicians vs. entertainers.

All this means I value our relationship, in spite of our differences.

I'm glad to call you a friend.


Russ

Russ, you must admit that your musical skills and use of an arranger keyboard are far different than the 99.9% of most musicians and arranger keyboard players. We both know an incredible number of highly skilled musicians, but only a handful those that I know generate their entire income performing music.

I can clearly remember when Jerry and Elsa Burns performed at the White House with the Zim Zimerel Orchestra. Everyone was wearing a tux and the band set up on the North Lawn for the concert. The temperature that day was near 100 degrees, and Jerry said everyone in the band was sweating profusely, almost to the point dehydration at the end of the first hour. Jerry and the other band members were paid $75 for the day, and the concert was for 2 hours. On the day that he performed with the best of the best, I worked just 2 hours in 2 air conditioned locations, playing and singing to the seniors, never broke into a sweat, and hauled in $250.

By and large, most of the highly trained musicians I've met during the years I worked the senior circuit, most had other jobs, engineers, physicians, attorneys, etc... Granted, they were really great musicians, far more musically talented than myself, a self trained musician, but it was their day job that paid the bills.

It's the same in your case, however, as a musical writer/producer/video editor, etc..., music is your full-time day job, and you operate it as a full-time business person.

I am proud to call you my friend, Russ, even though we do not agree on a few topics.

All the best,

Gary

I'll add, maybe a rather "been there, heard that comment", but as a reminder:

Since 2000, I've been following SynthZone, and I have learned that every player has their own purpose for owning and playing an arranger. When I first joined, Nigel told me this forum was created for all different types of players, pro, semi pro, home, or all of the above.

Many here are pros, and work hard to be the best. Every chord and every note needs to be precise. I say good for you, I admire your dedication to perfection. Other pros are happy that they know just enough to entertain, and are not interested in learning intricate chord inversions, and runs. They just love to entertain. Besides that, the general audience won't even notice. The just want the entertainment.

The same can be said for the "stay at home headphone players". While some are willing to learn to expand their musical knowledge, I believe most are just happy that they can play along with a band, be it a backing band, that they can fantasize playing in front of an audience. They think they sound good, and I find nothing wrong with that. There is a reason why arranger keyboards give left hand chord options. It's my opinion, that 75%, or more are in this "stay at home" category.

And then there is Russ who has his own category. Film scores, advertising commercial songs, jingles and the like. It's awesome that an arranger has in a way helped further his career to the point of a six figure income. BTW, much of that income donated to worthwhile causes. Than you sir for that.

For me, along with others that are somewhere in the middle, we are not full time pros, but do an occasional play out, more like a semi pro? Some of us do it as a favor at family functions, nursing homes, etc. because we like doing that. We are most certainly not looking to rely on "playing out" as a source of income. The last few years I have become an at home player only, and I love it. At 72, I've learned just about everything I need at this stage. But I still like to try new stuff, gotta keep the ol' brain busy.

So for me, I have come to the conclusion that arranger keyboards can, and are played by a wide variety of talented players, including newbies, pro, not so pro, home. Let's call Arrangers the "Melting pot" keyboard.

Gary, the fact that we are friends in spite of occasional (sometimes, fundamental) disagreements is proof of the strength of a friendship.

Thanks for always being there.


Russ