From a local perspective:
http://www.themap.org/content/view/61/
The recent biography:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0378378/
He will be missed here in Asheville.
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lee wells wrote:
> The New York Times
> August 23, 2005
> Robert Moog Dies at 71; Created a Synthesizer That Revolutionized
> Music
> By ALLAN KOZINN
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/arts/music/23moog.html?hp
>
> Robert Moog, the creator of the electronic music synthesizer that
> bears his
> name and that became ubiquitous among experimental composers as well
> as rock
> musicians in the 1960's and 70's, died on Sunday at his home in
> Asheville,
> N.C. He was 71.
>
> The cause was an inoperable brain tumor, discovered in April, his
> daughter
> Michelle Moog-Koussa said.
>
> At the height of his synthesizer's popularity, when progressive rock
> bands
> like Yes, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Emerson, Lake and Palmer
> built
> their sounds around the assertive, bouncy, exotically wheezy and
> occasionally explosive timbres of Mr. Moog's instruments, his name
> (which
> rhymes with vogue) became so closely associated with electronic sound
> that
> it was often used generically, if incorrectly, to describe
> synthesizers of
> all kinds.
>
> More recently, hip-hop groups like the Beastie Boys and rock bands
> with more
> experimentalist leanings, from They Might Be Giants to Wilco, have
> revived
> an interest in the early Moog synthesizer timbres. Partly because of
> this
> renewed interest, Mr. Moog and his instruments were the subjects of a
> documentary, "Moog," which opened in the fall of 2004. In an interview
> last
> year with The New York Times, Hans Fjellestad, who directed the film,
> likened Mr. Moog to Les Paul and Leo Fender, who are widely regarded
> as the
> fathers of the electric guitar.
>
> "He embodies that sort of visionary, maverick spirit and that inventor
> mythology," Mr. Fjellestad said at the time.
>
> Mr. Moog's earliest instruments were collections of modules better
> suited to
> studio work than live performance, and as rock bands adopted them, he
> expanded his line to include the Minimoog and the Micromoog,
> instruments
> that could be used more easily on stage. He also expanded on his
> original
> monophonic models, which played only a single musical line at a time,
> creating polyphonic instruments that allowed for harmony and
> counterpoint.
>
> Even so, by the end of the 1970's, Mr. Moog's instruments were being
> supplanted by those of competing companies like Arp, Aries, Roland and
> Emu,
> which produced synthesizers that were less expensive, easier to use
> and more
> portable. (Those instruments, in turn, were displaced in the 1980's by
> keyboard-contained digital devices by Kurzweil, Yamaha and others.)
>
> In 1978, Mr. Moog moved from western New York to North Carolina, where
> he
> started a new company, Big Briar (later Moog Music), that produced
> synthesizer modules and alternative controllers - devices other than
> keyboards, with which a musician could play electronic instruments.
> His
> particular specialty was the Ethervox, a version of the theremin, an
> eerie-toned instrument created by the Russian inventor Leon Theremin,
> in the
> 1920's, that allows performers to create pitches by moving their hands
> between two metal rods.
>
> It was the theremin, in fact, that got Mr. Moog interested in
> electronic
> music when he was a child in the 1940's. In 1949, when he was 14, he
> built a
> theremin from plans he found in a magazine, Electronics World. He
> tinkered
> with the instrument until he produced a design of his own, in 1953,
> and in
> 1954 he published an article on the theremin in "Radio and Television
> News,"
> and started the R. A. Moog Company, which sold his theremins and
> theremin
> kits.
>
> Mr. Moog was born in New York City on May 23, 1934, and although he
> studied
> the piano while he was growing up in Flushing, Queens, his real
> interest was
> physics. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, and earned
> undergraduate degrees in physics from Queens College and electrical
> engineering from Columbia University.
>
> By the time he completed his Ph.D. in engineering physics at Cornell
> University in 1965, his theremin business had taken off, and he had
> started
> working with Herbert Deutsch, a composer, on his first synthesizer
> modules.
> Mr. Moog was familiar with the huge synthesizers in use at Columbia
> University and at RCA and that European composers were experimenting
> with;
> his goal was to create instruments that were both more compact and
> accessible to musicians.
>
> The first Moog synthesizers were collections of modules, connected by
> electronic patch cords, something like those that connect stereo
> components.
> The first module, an oscillator, would produce a sound wave, giving a
> musician a choice of several kinds, ranging from the gracefully
> undulating
> purity of a sine wave to the more complex, angular or abrasive sounds
> of
> square and sawtooth waves. The wave was sent to the next module,
> called an
> A.D.S.R. (attack-decay-sustain-release) envelope generator, with which
> the
> player defined the way a note begins and ends, and how long it is
> held. A
> note might, for example, explode in a sudden burst, like a trumpet
> blast, or
> it could fade in at any number of speeds. From there, the sound went
> to a
> third module, a filter, which was used to shape its color and texture.
>
> Using these modules, and others that Mr. Moog went on to create, a
> musician
> could either imitate acoustic instruments, or create purely electronic
> sounds. A keyboard, attached to this setup, let the performer control
> when
> the oscillator produced a tone, and at what pitch.
>
> "Artist feedback drove all my development work," Mr. Moog said in an
> interview with Salon in 2000. "The first synthesizers I made were in
> response to what Herb Deutsch wanted. The now-famous Moog filter was
> suggested by several musicians. The so-called A.D.S.R. envelope, which
> is
> now a basic element in all contemporary synthesizers and programmable
> keyboard instruments, was originally specified in 1965 by Vladimir
> Ussachevsky, then head of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music
> Center.
> The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I
> design
> things that other people want to use."
>
> University music schools quickly established electronic music labs
> built
> around the Moog synthesizer, and composers like Richard Teitelbaum,
> Dick
> Hyman and Walter Carlos (who later had a sex-change operation and is
> now
> Wendy Carlos) adopted them. For most listeners, though, it was a
> crossover
> album, Walter Carlos's "Switched-On Bach," that ushered the instrument
> into
> the spotlight. A collection of Bach transcriptions, meticulously
> recorded
> one line at a time, "Switched-On Bach" was meant to persuade casual
> listeners who regarded synthesizers as random noise machines that the
> instrument could be used in thoroughly musical ways. The album's
> sequels
> included the haunting Purcell and Beethoven transcriptions used in the
> Stanley Kubrick film "A Clockwork Orange."
>
> Rock groups were attracted to the Moog as well. The Monkees used the
> instrument as early as 1967, on their "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and
> Jones
> Ltd." album. In early 1969, George Harrison, of the Beatles, had a
> Moog
> synthesizer installed in his home, and released an album of his
> practice
> tapes, "Electronic Sound," that May. The Beatles used the synthesizer
> to
> adorn several tracks on the "Abbey Road" album, most notably John
> Lennon's
> "Because," Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun" and Paul McCartney's
> "Maxwell's
> Silver Hammer."
>
> Among jazz musicians, Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer and Sun Ra adopted
> the
> synthesizer quickly. And with the advent of progressive rock, in the
> early
> 1970's, the sound of the Moog synthesizer and its imitators became
> ubiquitous.
>
> In 1971, Mr. Moog sold his company, Moog Music, to Norlin Musical
> Instruments, but he continued to design instruments for the company
> until
> 1977. When he moved to North Carolina, in 1978, he started Big Briar,
> to
> make new devices, and he renamed the company Moog Music when he bought
> back
> the name in 2002. He also worked as a consultant and vice president
> for new
> product research at Kurzweil Music Systems, from 1984 to 1988.
>
> His first marriage, to Shirleigh Moog, ended in divorce. He is
> survived by
> his wife, Ileana; his children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog,
> Michelle
> Moog-Koussa, Renee Moog and Miranda Richmond; and five grandchildren.
>
> * Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
>
> –
> Lee Wells
> Brooklyn, NY 11222
>
> http://www.leewells.org
> 917 723 2524
>
Re: Robert Moog Dies at 71; Created a Synthesizer That RevolutionizedMusic - nytimes
-
Type: discussion