ABSTRACT
The data for a fresh approach to the study of folk and primitive song have been piling up during the last decade. Previously the student had to depend upon acoustically poor recordings or upon musical transcriptions which were admittedly skeletal. Today the tape machine gives us a high-fidelity record of the folk performance in all of its tonal nuances, with none of its color lost or distorted. Long-playing records make this new world of musical color available to students everywhere. Soon vision on tape machines will produce archives of the musical act itself, but it is already possible to listen to people singing and making music in every part of the world by the simple act of putting a few records on the turntable.
