Editor's Introduction

It is my pleasure to welcome Christopher Roberts’s book to the Apwɨtɨhɨre series, published by the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. Through this series, we have attempted to make available important studies on various types of music found in this country: traditional, as well as forms of popular music and church music. Christopher’s book was originally published in Mandarin Chinese almost two decades ago (Roberts 1996b). The Institute and I are thrilled to be able to publish a revised, expanded, and improved edition in English now. To introduce this publication, I consider two important aspects of Christopher’s work: the recording of Mountain Ok music and music transcriptions of Papua New Guinea music.