Until then, electronic music had been a luxury that very few popular musicians could afford. Most synthesizers were owned by classical music centers or by large recording studios.

Despite the practical difficulties, a few visionary composers introduced electronic arrangements in popular music, following the success of the Beach Boys' Good Vibrations (1966). Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley virtually invented electronic pop with the goofy "electronic sonosyntheses" of The In Sound From Way Out (1966).

Canadian composer Mort Garson (3) recorded Zodiac Cosmic Sounds (1967), a suite accompanied by Paul Beaver on electronic keyboards, The Wozard of Iz (1969), an electronic parody of the children's classic (featuring Bernie Krause on "environmental sounds"), Lucifer (United Artists, 1971), an exoteric opera/mass, his wildest hodgepodge of electronic sounds, and Music for Sensuous Lovers (1971), which features the Moog synthesizer and orgasmic moans by a porno star.

Ron Geesin (1), an eclectic British sound researcher who had already experimented with the collage on A Raise Of Eyebrows (1967), wed psychedelia and Dadaism on The Body (1970) and particularly Electrosound (1972), which expanded cosmic music and predated industrial music.

The man who is credited with turning "electronic music" into commercial music is Walter Carlos, whose Switched On Bach (1968) was the first electronic album to climb the charts, although his best one was Sonic Seasonings (1972), that predated ambient music by a few years.

In 1968 several rock bands also experimented with the new medium to enhance their creative chaos, notably the psychedelic bands United States Of America in New York and Fifty Foot Hose in San Francisco.

Lothar & The Hand People (2) were perhaps the first rock band to use electronic instruments for more than mere background filling on their albums Presenting (1968) and Space Hymn (1969).

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Legendary cult-band Silver Apples (2) were an experimental duo of electronic keyboards and vocals that predated new wave and synth-pop by almost a decade. The music on Silver Apples (1968) and Contact (1969) wed psychedelia and rock'n'roll while packing urban neurosis and existential angst.

In Boston, Beacon Street Union's member Peter Ivers applied electronic "modulations" to the already wildly eccentric arrangements of his religious concept Knight Of The Blue Communion (Epic, 1969), A surreal parade of jazz, psychedelic, pop, classical and vaudeville numbers featuring an opera singer.

The first musician to improvise live on a synthesizer was probably Annette Peacock, performing with Paul Bley's jazz combo.

Two veterans of electronic instruments formed another influential duo, simply named Beaver & Krause (3), whose Ragnarok Electronic Funk (1969) was another important milestone in the adoption of electronic instruments. On In A Wild Sanctuary (1970) they attempted a raga-classical-folk-psychedelic fusion, and on Gandharva (1971), recorded in San Francisco's cathedral with help from Gerry Mulligan and Bud Schank, they further expanded towards jazz.

In 1970 Robert Moog unveiled the Minimoog, the first portable synthesizer. That event made electronic music available to a much broader group of musicians. While still expensive, this toy could be moved from one stage to the other, and be therefore integrated into the rock ensemble.

David Borden (1) formed in 1969 the electronic trio that would record Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company (1973), armed with the mini-Moog synthesizer and inspired by Terry Riley's minimalism and jazz improvisation.

In Sweden, Bo Hansson released Sagan Om Ringen (1970), a collection of twelve impressionistic vignettes that mixed folk, classical, jazz and pop and that predate synth-pop and new-age music.

In Britain, electronic music pioneers White Noise, the brainchild of USA-born David Vorhaus, concocted the ethereal space lullabies of An Electric Storm (1969).

Finally, the Tonto's Expanding Head Band (1) recorded Zero Time (1971), the first collection of original pop melodies entirely played on synthesizers.

By that time, German bands had begun to shift the center of mass towards the electronic keyboards and would soon proceed to reinvent rock music.