When you don't bring the keyboard!!!!!!
MEL

LOL…

So, you bring a keyboard, but you don’t play any leads (you use tracks). Are you using a keyboard to DJ, or are you playing? 😂

Very Interesting Chas,
Cheating to me would be a singer lip syncing, or guitarist pretending to play. If a backing track is used to fill out a performance, personally don’t see anything wrong with it.
Just my 2 cents worth as a non performer.

I agree, Rikki, with your statement, with the operative phrase being "to fill out your performance". I will use backing tracks, occasionally, for background support only. I play with an active left hand and right hand melody and/or sing. In contrast, I see performances by many groups where guitar, accordion, and keyboard players pretend to play, that any musician, especially, can spot. Last night, I was watching a show that included an accordion player running her hand up and down the keys with the bellows closed, or keyboard playing a difficult part with his hands barely moving. This blatant pretense makes me ill. I may as well try to ignore it, as everyone, it seems, is doing it. When I think of the countless hours of learning and practice true musicians, like ourselves, have invested, I begin to lose faith in society.

I totally agree, but just to let you know as an old accordian player, that the newer accordians don't have to be moving bellows to play. They use electronics and that all started with the cordovox sorry for the spelling.
MEL

As always, I see a difference of opinion when it comes to tracks (whether audio or SMF) and arranger use, but to be frank, I see little difference between the two. The degree of musical involvement it takes to play the correct chord (or whatever!) at roughly the right time with your left hand is pretty minimal (at least for decent players), but what is coming out of the arranger is still tracks… whether audio (Ketron) or SMF (the rest).

Sure, short tracks, and you are stringing them together, but tracks nonetheless.

As I see it, the difference between DJ-ing and actually PLAYING comes from what you actually play, what the audience hears YOU (not the arranger) playing, from your singing (if you sing) from what they can actually SEE you doing (it’s not just musicians that can tell when someone’s hands have nothing to do with what they can hear!).

But more and more these days, I see arrangers designed more for DJ’s than musicians. Whole features designed specifically to allow you to input your one finger chord and then the arranger does everything else, including the solos. And I have to ask myself, who are these designed for? Apparently, someone who wants to DJ, but is too old to want to stand behind a table with the usual collection of DJ tools, CD decks, pad bank triggers (like Maschine) etc. and actually DJ!

Is this the future of arrangers? I sincerely hope not..! 🎹

The main reason I do NOT use backing tracks is that I, personally, feel that I do not have control of everything. I need to be able to string a song out when necessary, or shorten it. I want to be able to improvise that right hand melody, while at the same time mess with the volume of the additional left hand instrument, such as a choir or strings, plus kick in with some neat multipads when I feel I need just a little extra omph added to a song while I'm singing. I want the ability to go out into left field with any song that I perform, use different chords than the original, etc..., things that would stir the interest of various audiences and keep them actively involved. I really don't care if you play with a single finger or your toes, just as long as you select the correct chords and keep perfect time. Yep, I want to be in control of everything that takes place musically.

All the best,

Gary

"As I see it, the difference between DJ-ing and actually PLAYING comes from what you actually play, what the audience hears YOU (not the arranger) playing, from your singing (if you sing) from what they can actually SEE you doing (it’s not just musicians that can tell when someone’s hands have nothing to do with what they can hear!)" .quote from Diki


"What you actually play"
100% agreed, but that's the point. Accomp is one thing, but miming or passing off the melody line as yours when in fact you are are not really playing at all is what gripes me.

DITTO!

Backing Tracks.
1-No matter how many times you play them they do not change.
2-I cannot invent or doing what I am feeling—I must follow.
3-They are good for a sing-a-long.
4-The more I do, the less it sounds like a keyboard.

I met Backing tracks when an OMB played at my wife’s place of employment. He faked playing the piano --- he strummed the guitar, but the hand position did not match the song

BUT! When he played the lines dances, he ran to the dance floor danced with them. They loved him.
What a price to pay to succeed.

Keep in mind, these are my opinions, John C.