[windeguy]

I have played keyboard from the age of 8 years old (um that was 44 years ago, geez I'm old!). I started on a Thomas Organ. I have had Farfisa organs, Fender Rhodes Pianos, Arp Odyssey and Arp 2600 synths, a clavinet, Hammond CV and 147 Leslie, an Elka string machine and another piano like keyboard whose name escapes me.

I have played in bands that gigged since I was 15 years old. I would guess about 20 different groups over the years from Holiday Inns to the Haight Ashbury street festival, Gilroy Garlic festival and a lot of hole in the wall places. Mostly rock, pop and very light jazz. I also played in a church for a few years to make some additional money. My gigs helped me pay for my Electrical Engineering degree in microprocessor design. It would be hard for anyone to make the relatively good money that I made many years ago today.

Currently, I am retired in the Dominican Republic ( actually we rent some apartments in Cabarete to vacationers so I do have a small gig) and have a Roland XV88, a few old Ensoniq keyboards (Mirage, ASR10 ESQ-1), a Proteus 2000 sound module and have played around with soft synths.

My advice for those of you wanted to learn keyboard is to get an inexpensive Roland 88 note piano if you want to learn piano. There are many choices if you want a synth/organ style keyboard. It is easy to add to the sounds as you go with MIDI'ed sound modules. Good luck to those that aspire to learn. I myself am a frustrated guitarist/bassist. I have to time to learn, but not that many people here to jam with and I was never much of a solo player.