I have sung the "How Do We Get New People Interested" blues for some
time, never seeing an obvious solution to bringing new people to our
hobby.  Recently many of you have focused on the young and how they can
be encouraged.

We can all think of numerous reasons why the young "should be
interested", but try and remember what it was like being a young child
or teenager and then what it was like when "them old people" wanted you
to take notice of what they were doing.  I would think that we have to
be aware of their interests as well as the interests of our own.

Here is some information that you may or may not find useful the next
time you have a group with young people in it.

I would guess that most of you are aware of MTV, the Musical Television
channel devoted to playing rock and roll videos and all those types of
music thrown in the classification with rock and roll.  The channel of
course is dedicated to the young viewer.

One feature of MTV is an occasional concert called "Unplugged" where
the musicians, as you have guessed, play live renditions of their music
but with all acoustic instruments.  Two different concerts have
included reed organs in the band and they were played by legendary
"Rock Gods" Eric Clapton in one concert and Neil Young in another
concert.  Clapton used a Mason & Hamlin and Young used an Estey small
pipe-top organ.

A video during normal play time by Howard Jones, performing the song
"No One Is To Blame", shows several different shots of a player piano
with the front off, exposing the working air motor and interior

I am not an avid viewer of MTV, mind you (most of it annoys me), but
my point is that there is no better way to gain someone's interest than
to show interest in what they may enjoy first.

Dave Smith