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AP Synthesizer Innovator Robert A Moog Dies By NATALIE GOTT, Associated Press Writer 35 minutes ago RALEIGH, NC - Robert A Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned elec tric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, has died.
Moog died Sunday at his home in Asheville, according to his company's Web site. A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tie d the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to el ectric guitars. Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my cu stomers," he said in 2000. As a PhD student in engineering physics at Cornell University, Moog r hymes with vogue in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthe sizer modules with composer Herb Deutsch. The instrument allowed musicians, first in a studio and later on stage, t o generate a range of sounds that could mimic nature or seem otherworldl y by flipping a switch, twisting a dial, or sliding a knob. Other synthe sizers were already on the market in 1964, but Moog's stood out for bein g small, light and versatile. The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and other musi cians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug experiences with the ir art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on their 1969 album "Abbey R oad"; a Moog was used to create an eerie sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange." Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album "Switched-On Bach" in 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.
"Suddenly, there was a whole group of people in the world looking for a n ew sound in music, and it picked up very quickly," said Deutsch, the Hof stra University emeritus music professor who helped develop the Moog pro totype.
Keith Emerson , keyboardist for the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Along with rock, synthesizers developed since Moog's breakthrough helped inspire elements of 1970s funk, hip-hop, and techno. Charles Carlini, a New York City concert promoter, staged Moogfest in May 2004 to mark a half-century since Moog founded his first company while still in college. Emerson, Rick Wakeman of Yes, and Bernie Worrell of Pa rliament/Funkadelic were among those who played, and a second Moogfest w as held a year later. Moog had "this absent-minded professorial way about him," Carlini said. "He sees it like, there's a thought, an idea in the air, and it passes through him. Passing throu gh him, he's able to build these instruments." "A lot of people today don't realize what this man brought to the masses, " Carlini said. "He brought electronic music to the masses and changed t he way we hear music." But the now-pervasive synthesizer's ability to mimic strings, horns, and percussion has also threatened some musicians. In 2004, musicians extracted a promise from the Opera Company of Brooklyn to never again use an advanced kind of synthesizer, called a virtual or chestra machine, in future productions. A deliberate man with brushed-back white hair and a breast pocket packed with pens, Moog drove an aging Toyota painted with a snail, vines and a fish blowing bubbles. "When I drive that thing around, people smile at me," he said. He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the Universi ty of North Carolina at Asheville before turning full-time to running hi s new instrument business, which was renamed Moog Music in 2002. The ros ter of customers includes Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Beck, Phish, Sonic Youth and Widespread Panic. two daughters, a son, a stepdaughte r, and his former wife, Shireleigh Moog. A public memorial is scheduled for Wednesday in Asheville.
Robert Moog smiles after being named a winner of the Polar Music Priz e, a Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award, on Jan. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into soun d and opened the musical wave that became electronica, has died.
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