In the Spotlight: An Interview with Bob Moog

By Stefani Langol

Bob Moog was born in 1934, in New York City. His academic degrees include a BS in Physics from Queens College (NYC), a BS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University (NYC), and a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY).

In 1954 Moog founded the R.A. Moog Company as a part-time business to design and build electronic instruments, particularly theremins. The company became a full-time business in 1964, the year it introduced the Moog synthesizer. In 1971, the name of the company was changed to Moog Music, Inc., and in 1973, the company became a division of Norlin Music, Inc. Moog Music manufactured Moog Modular, Minimoog and other Moog analog synthesizers. Moog served as president of Moog Music until 1977. In 1978, Moog moved to North Carolina and founded Big Briar, Inc. for the purposes of designing and building novel electronic music equipment, especially new types of performance control devices. Big Briar’s activities continue to include building theremins, MIDI interfaces, and custom electronic music equipment.

From 1984 to 1988,. Moog was a full-time consultant and Vice President of New Product research for Kurzweil Music Systems, and from 1988 until 1992 he also served as a professor in the Music Department of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Moog’s awards include honorary doctorates from Polytechnic University and Lycoming College; the Silver Medal of the Audio Engineering Society; the Trustee’s Award of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; the Billboard Magazine Trendsetter’s Award; and the SEAMUS award from the Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States. He has written and spoken widely on topics related to music technology, and has contributed major articles to the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of Applied Physics.

SL: What is you musical background?

BM: I studied piano, theory, and sight singing at Manhattan School of Music in their pre-college division from 1942-1948. Frankly, it was something my mother wanted me to do. I was more interested in electronics.

SL: Who was your most significant mentor and how did they influence you?

BM: My father was my first and most influential mentor. He was an engineer and he had a very complete home workshop. I loved working with him, learning anything he would teach me. He knew some electronics, and he taught me how to solder and use a voltmeter. From him I got my love of building stuff, - any kind of stuff.

SL: When did you begin designing electronic instruments and what was the first electronic instrument you designed?

BM: When I was fairly young (maybe ten years old or so), my father and I would build simple electronics hobby projects, - two-tube radios and that sort of thing. At one point we built one or two very simple electronic musical instruments. After that I was off and running by myself. That was when I was 12 or so. I built my first theremin from a magazine article when I was 14, and I haven’t stopped since. When I was in high school, I designed and built several theremins. In 1953 I wrote my first how-to-build-a-theremin article, for Radio and Television News magazine. I was 19 at the time.

SL: What was the inspiration behind your early synthesizer designs?

BM: I worked with an experimental composer, - Herbert Deutsch, - for a few weeks. Out of that collaboration came some basic ideas for the modular electronic music synthesizer.

SL: Who were the first composers to use these electronic instruments?

BM: My first synthesizer customer was the choreographer Alwin Nikolais. He composed all his music on tape, and wanted additional sonic resources. My second customer was Eric Siday, who was doing very well as a composer of radio and TV commercial music. After that we sold instruments to Vladimir Ussachevsky of the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center, Lejaren Hiller of the University of Illinois, George Rochberg of the University of Pennsylvania, and Gustav Ciamaga of the University of Toronto.

SL: When did electronic instruments start to have wider appeal?

BM: Nearly all of our first customers were either experimental composers in universities, or producers of music for radio and television commercials. The very first records using any synthesizer at all came out in 1967. And then, of course, the release of Switched-On Bach at the end of 1968 catapulted us into the mainstream of the pop music scene.

SL: How has the use of electronic instruments and computers impacted on music making and music listening over the last few decades?

BM: That’s a big question! I don’t think of what has happened in terms of the technological medium ‘impacting’ music. Rather, there has been an ongoing interaction between technology and culture, and a lot of things that have happened have been driven by cultural changes.

For instance, think of the late sixties. The multitrack tape recorder, along with all the recording studio technology that had been developed up until then, was making ‘highly-produced’ music possible. Synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments were really a part of that, as far as mainstream pop music was concerned. So were electric guitars and basses. But culturally, there was a demand for innovative, sonically-rich music. The record companies were frantically tossing every weird type of music they could find into the marketplace.

Another factor, and this is something that concerns me from time to time, is that, since the beginning of this century, there has been a steady trend of people listening to less live music and more recorded music. It’s not just electronic instruments and computers and tape recorders. We’re spending less of our time participating in social interactions and more of our time alone with our various stimuli. A great example of this is the jogger or the factory worker, listening to his/her walkman, effectively shut off from the social environment.

What part does the computer play in this? Well, every computer music production program that I know of is modeled after the tape recorder, the synthesizer, or other more ‘traditional’ music production tools. The computer just makes it more efficient, more automatic, faster. As a result, we have enormous quantities of recorded music. Anybody can make his/her own CD without getting up from their desk, these days. The care, skill, and concentration that has traditionally gone into music production is not in evidence in some of today’s music. Of course, it’s not just music. The same thing can be said for video and film, and writing.

SL: Was there ever a particular, defining time in your career when you realized that this technology had the potential to radically change the way music is made?

BM: I remember predicting back in the sixties, that home keyboard instruments of the future would incorporate synthesizer technology. That certainly has come to pass. But it hasn’t ‘radically changed the way music is made.’ I see today’s music production methods as being the logical continuation of the concepts that were invented by the earliest tape music composers, back in the late ‘40’s and early ‘50’s. They are really the people who have ‘radically changed the way music is made.’ The computer is just making it easy and cheap, - and fun, - to do.

SL: In your opinion, what potential does music technology hold for music education?

BM: My most painful memories of taking piano lessons are of my piano teacher constantly beating on me when I made mistakes. I’m sure that I would have had a better time of it if I could have practiced with an electronic keyboard and a computer system that provided neutral, non-judgmental feedback when I made mistakes. That is certainly one important potential of contemporary music technology, - student-friendly learning and practicing systems.

Another important area is, of course, the potential for all students to experience music production, - a complete ‘project’ that you can take home and play for your family and friends, irrespective of your talent or skill level, - just like a crayon drawing on a piece of paper. Computer-based music systems can really contribute here at all levels of music education.

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TIME was developed through a grant from NAMM, The International Music Products Association with support from IAEKM, The International Association of Electronic Keyboard Manufacturers.