About a month ago we got the first copies of the new Craig Anderton Music Tape. We had a lot of fun listening to it, picking out special effects, figuring out how he got certain sounds, and all the usual fun things you do when you listen to a new album or tape. But, as we listened to it mere, we began to speak of the music/Concept/accomplishment in strange terms. We were searching for some way to summarize the unique experience we were having. Then John happened to say something about "new folk music". Huh? Hey, that's what it is. It suddenly dawned on us that we are on the front edge of a new wave of music — tomorrow's folk music.

Thinking back through time, typical examples of folk music would be the backwoods-style bluegrass music, bagpipe bands of Scotland, the acoustic guitar accompanied protest songs of the '60's, and so on. The primary similarity between these types of music is that they were originally performed purely for the pleasure of the performer or a Small gathering of his peers. Folk music represents as personal a musical statement as can be made, because folk music tries to buck as much of the established commercialism of society as possible. Another important factor of folk music is that the performing musician generally prefers as little interference as possible from the outside world. He wants to do as much of the musical accompaniment as possible. This is why piano and guitar are so popular. They sound good by themselves; one performer can play these instruments and still sing his song. He becomes a one-man-band. Are you beginning to see the similarities between all this and what you are trying to accomplish with your synthesizer and tape recorder? You should.

Craig is one of the first to carry the new folk music to a point where he is actually distributing the results of his work. But, in traditional folk style, he chose to bypass the hassle of trying to get a contract with a commercial record company, and he asked us to tell all of you about the tape and try to sell a few that way. At first, the approach may seem a bit clumsy — I mean, an electronics company selling pre-recorded tapes. But, Craig knew that the readers of Polyphony would be the type of people who were most interested in listening to his type of "home-made" music.

From reading the trade magazines, it looks like there is an increasing number of musicians who are getting interested in buying multitrack recorders and mixing boards, modifying their instruments to better suit their needs or playing style, or even designing/building new types of equipment which aren't available on the commercial market.

This can't help but breed a new generation of music which is written, arranged, produced and performed by small groups of people. Hopefully, there will be an increasing number of these types of albums. I feel that they give a breath of fresh air to an entertainment industry which unendingly jumps from rut to rut. Also, whether you realize it or not, these "struggling underdogs" have a very strong indirect influence on the future paths taken by our existing entertainment industries. I hope you will get involved in this exciting new field, and give it whatever support you honestly feel.

ON THE COVER:

A cartoon by Bob Yannes shows a perplexed likeness of See Threepio looking on as an Artoo Deetoo-type robot plugs into a PAIA P4700/J Computer-Synthesizer for a friendly exchange of memory contents.