Over the past year, there has been a flood of new keyboard instruments appearing on the market which have been called polyphonic synthesizers.

"Polyphonic" has become a very fashionable word in the keyboard industry, and many companies think that if an instrument can play more than one note at a time they have it made. I feel it takes a lot more than that to make a polyphonic instrument which represents any amount of musical or technical advancement.

Let's take a minute to look at the derivation of the words polyphonic and polytonic. The prefix "poly-" is generally taken to mean many or multiple.

The Latin word "tonus" provides the basis for the word tone, or for our purposes "-tonic". Tonus means stretching or tension. Taken in musical context, this translates directly to pitch. Consider; stretching a guitar string increases the pitch; stretching a drum head increases its pitch. Our remaining section, "-phonic", seems to come from the Greek word for sound. Granted, sound is a word which covers a broad area and I don't want to categorize it too much, but, I think most of you would agree that the "sound" of an instrument has a lot more to it than just pitch — it must also consider harmonic content, amplitude envelope, phase relationships of the harmonics, and on and on.

Putting our pieces back together again, we come up with polytonic meaning "many notes" and polyphonic meaning "many sounds" or, in musical context, "many voiced". If so desired, either one of these terms could be stretched and distorted to represent even the most simple electronic instruments. As an example, let's consider the PAIA Gnome Micro-Synthesizer. By varying the VCO range and using the controller strip, a virtually infinite variety of different notes can be played. True, you can't play several notes at once, but you CAN play several notes. So, why don't we start calling the Gnome a polytonic synthesizer? Likewise, the multiple VCO waveform outputs, noise source, VCF and VCA of the Gnome can all be combined in so many different settings that the Gnome will produce an infinite number of sounds or permutations. So, since we can get many sounds out of the Gnome, let's start calling it a polyphonic synthesizer!

I can see you all rolling in the aisles with laughter. Yes, this is obviously carrying the words to the extremes of their meanings, but I think you can see that we could have used these advertising tactics if we wanted to. Similarly, a Mini-Moog or Arp Odyssey could have been promoted with these terms. Several years ago nobody would have noticed, but now we would all laugh. So what is it that has changed on the new synthesizers (the Polymoog, Arp Omni, and many string synthesizers) that impels the manufacturers to squeeze this ubiquitous term - polyphonic - into their advertising and promotion. The only thing I can see that has changed much is the ability to play more than one note at a time. You still have only one set of master controls to determine the voicing of the instrument, and whatever voicing you select is repeated for each note all the way across the keyboard. Does this description sound like I'm talking about an organ? Well that's all these units are — super organs. The only thing that pushes them into the synthesizer category is the fact that they are using circuitry which proliferated during synthesizer development; active filtering instead of the older passive networks, VCA envelope generation instead of diode keying, and control voltage concepts to change many circuit parameters with a single front panel master control. If your friend showed you a Farfisa combo organ or a Hammond B3 and told you it was a polyphonic synthesizer, you may start to phone the white coat brigade. But, he wouldn't be that far wrong — according to the definitions of the major manufacturers. The only difference would be that his wouldn't be quite as versatile and wouldn't have quite as many variables to play with. In my opinion, these types of instruments would more appropriately be called polytonic.

OK, so what is a polyphonic synthesizer? Define it. Where do we draw the line? Well, I'm not arguing the point that these machines could be called polyphonic. But, phrases like "...the first and only truly polyphonic synthesizer", and "completely polyphonic"?! Sorry, I won't go with that. Who's to say what a truly polyphonic unit is? I know we have the technology to do a LOT more than make super organs. I've seen it.

My concept of a true or complete polyphonic system stems from my vision of what synthesizers will be used for in the future. A composer should be able to sit down at a keyboard and realize real time performances of pieces originally written for several instruments. That implies playing up to ten keys and not only getting ten notes, but ten individual voices — each completely different if you wish. As far as I know, the only commercial unit to do this is the Emu Systems keyboard. The Oberheim polyphonic system uses the same scheme (in fact, it is manufactured under a license from Emu). Also, there are other companies (ahem, I think you know who I'm talking about) who are releasing similar systems — hopefully with even more versatility and power due to the use of microprocessor control.

In the end, you each have to decide for yourselves what degree of sophistication YOUR polyphonic system will need. Perhaps the polytonic super organs serve your needs, perhaps they are even more than you were expecting. But, somehow this all rubs me the wrong way.

Thanks for listening.