Today marks 5 years since Dr. Robert Moog left this Earth. While his passing was truly a sad moment for all of us in the theremin and synthesizer communities, we wanted to spend the day today remembering the wonderful person Bob was and all the great accomplishments he left us with. As you are practicing, building, listening, or performing theremin music today, we invite you to take a moment to reflect on Bob's impact on your own life and share a fond memory with others.
Of course, the best way to help preserve Bob's legacy is to make a donation to the Bob Moog Foundation. Be sure to follow them on Twitter at @moogfoundation.
May the force of Moog be with us all... forever.
photo Bob Moog Foundation. Print reproduction is prohibited.
More Moog Mappings Posted By: omhoge @ 11:21
Bob Moog's work not only kept the theremin alive and available in the modern age, but changed the entire music world. It all boiled down to connecting and and and communicating with people. Bob listened to musicians as he created his instruments making them more intuitive and allowing the core concepts of synthesis like ASDR (Attack, Sustain, Decay, Release) to be more accessible.
That unrelenting vision seems to boil down to a love of people, belief in our innate creativity, and a commitment to making the world better through your work, music and supporting the causes you believe in.
I can map some of the most important turning points in my life directly to Bob's work.
- Switched On Bach recorded by Wendy Carlos with support from Bob Moog and Rachel Elkind, and the many magazine articles about the Moog Synthesizer at that time changed everything. On Wedny's site she quotes Bob "Switched-on Bach was released at the end of 1968 and became an immediate success. It was acclaimed as real music by musicians and the listening public alike. As a result, the Moog Synthesizer was suddenly accepted with open arms by the music business community. We witnessed the birth of a new genre of music--classical music, realized with impeccable musicianship on synthesizer and tape recorder. ..." Her eulogy for Bob is on her site
- The release of the MiniMoog in 1970 enabled many of us in school at the time access to an instrument and have hands on experience in tonal synthesis.
- The EtherWave Standard and Pro theremins from Moog Music made it possible for most of us to start the life changing process of playing the theremin and with the EWPro take it to new levels.
And of course let me ask again, if you can please help with a donation to the Moog Foundation.
What how did B
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even knew what a theremin was or about his personal involvement in the
history of the instrument. From the moment I first heard the song "Popcorn"
on my parents' record player, I was hooked on synthesizers. I knew at that
moment I wanted a synth. I was probably in the 6th grade at the time, and
my lust for synths has never waned.
In the early days of ThereminWorld.com (back when it was The Theremin Home
Page), I was still an engineering student at Vanderbilt University. The
theremin discovered me during a Pere Ubu/They Might Be Giants concert on
campus, and I decided to start collecting schematics so I could build my
own. A bit of research in the campus library tipped me off to the fact that
Bob Moog had previously made his living selling theremin kits and had also
recently produced the Series 91 line as Big Briar, Inc. I called Big Briar
to get some more information on theremins, and to my great surprise, Bob
himself answered the phone! I did my best to explain the website, and he
graciously sent me a pile of material on the Series 91 line to share online.
When Steven Martin's documentary "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" was
released, our campus theater decided to show it. I went to the theater
office and mentioned that I had a theremin and would be happy to demonstrate
it before and after the show. We brainstormed a bit and came up with the
idea of inviting Bob to come do a talk at the theater. I took the idea back
to my professors in the engineering school, and they asked Bob to do a talk
for students about the theremin. I was in heaven!
When Bob got to campus, I naively greeted him at the theater with a huge
goofy grin on my face. I don't think I stopped grinning for the rest of the
week! I went to Bob's lecture, where he entertained us with the principles
behind properly designed theremin circuits. After the lecture, Bob gave a
talk and slide show at the theater, and then we screened the film. Later
that night, I had the good fortune of having dinner with Bob and his wife.
He filled me in on the history of his previous synthesizer businesses and
how Big Briar, Inc. came to be. It was a night I will surely never forget.
Some months later, I visited Big Briar, Inc. in Asheville, NC. Bob was
incredibly welcoming. He shared with me some copies of drawings he had made
of the circuitry of Clara Rockmore's theremin and gave me permission to make
them available on the website. He gave me a complete factory tour and
explained in detail how Etherwave theremins were constructed. He let me
take detailed measurements and pictures of his RCA Theremin cabinet so I
could share those with other theremin enthusiasts who wanted to replicate
the RCA cabinet. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, we hopped
into his car and he took me to his personal storage unit. There, among
crates with labels like "Minimoog Prototypes", he dug out an old Vanguard
theremin cabinet he had been keeping and told me I could have it. I
couldn't believe my ears! Not only was my personal hero a world-changing
engineer, he was giving me artifacts from his personal history! I still have
that theremin cabinet, and I've stuffed it with the innards from original
Etherwave #047.
In 1997, at the First International Theremin Festival in Portland, Maine,
Bob hung out with us quite a bit. I also had the good fortune of hanging
out with Bob and the Big Briar folks at Summer NAMM in Nashville, TN before
I graduated. Seeing people literally bow in his honor on the show floor was
mind blowing. I saw him agai
I found my old Moog tee shirt and will wearing it out to dinner tonight.