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Brilliant Careers: Robert Moog

Posted by emmett on from the forbidden-planet dept.

citmanual wrote in to tell us about a fantastic article over at Salon about Robert Moog, the creator of the Moog and Minimoog synthesizers.

2 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. The influence of "Switched-On Bach" by RayChuang · · Score: 4

    What I find interesting about all the comments about Bob Moog's synthesizers here is that only ONE person mentioned Wendy (neé Walter) Carlos' major breakthrough album, SWITCHED-ON BACH.

    Remember, up until SWITCHED-ON BACH, electronic musical instruments were regarded more as curiosities and things to create "avant-garde" music. When SWITCHED-ON BACH was released in late 1968, it was a HUGE, HUGE breakthrough for synthesizers in general. For one thing, it incredibly refreshing to hear the music of Johann Sebestian Bach in such an innovative manner. You could hear with great clarity how Bach mastered the use of the counterpoint in music.

    This album was (IMHO) proof that Bach is perhaps the greatest music composer of all time, because Bach composed superb music for everything from clavicord, harpsicord, string quartets, small orchestras, big orchestras with a choir, pipe organs and even the early pianos.

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    Raymond in Mountain View, CA
  2. Bob Moog and others.. by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 4


    While Bob Moog was important (and does rule), there's also another guy whom Moog worked with in the late 60's and early 70's who is probably the biggest unsung hero in the history of electronic music.

    Hop over to RaymondScott.com and have a look. This guy built a goddamn self-programmable synthesizer out of thousands of pieces of discarded telephone switching equiptment in his basement before the era of MIDI. A 6 foot tall, 30-foot long array of telephone switching relays, tone circuits and oscillators to be exact.

    Scott is also the person credited with inventing the sequencer, and ambient electronic music in the early 1960's..A double-album set of pure electronic music designed for babies to listen to, believe it or not.

    For those of you who want to hear what the giant array of telephone relays sounds like, go here. Decompress the file and cat it to >/dev/audio ...its crude, but its all I can do on short notice. :) Its terrible quality, but, thats what buying CD's are for. I basically pointed my laptop at my stereo and recorded it straight off a console prompt. Hehehe..



    Bowie J. Poag
    Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda)

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    Bowie J. Poag