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Syracuse Herald Journal

Feb. 9, 1970
Synthesizer stars in music art show

The famous Moog Synthesizer, invented by Trumansburg's Robert Moog will play a major part in the music-art program "The Sight of Music," which plays University Regent Theater Saturday and Sunday at 8 p.m.
Most of the sound in the electronic mix section were made on the Synthesizer which gained fame nationwide when the record "Switched-on Bach" was released.

Syracuse University's School of Music, who presents the two-night program with the School of Art, purchased one of the first Moog inventions in 1966 and began one of the first electronic studios of this type in the state.

Although the studio's director, Franklin Morris considers the Synthesizer an instrument because it can recreate the sounds of traditional instruments, the sounds that will he heard largely in "Sight of Music" are those which, as in "Switched-on Bach," many people have not considered musical.
The improvisational section of the program relates to jazz improvisation only in that for both this type and jazz the performers use no music. Otherwise, there is little resemblence.
Most jazz has a beat and a chordal or tonal basis, but this style doesn't have either. Its origin lies in what might be called serious contemporary music of the last two decades- the kind of music that came to be called avant-garde.
This music has no melody in the usual sense and it has not beat, no key nor any preconceived form. What it does have is the color of individual and group sounds for the enjoyment of sound for its own sake.
The lazer light console which translates the musical sounds into light images is a multi-media projector. When stimulated by any combination of musical notes- instrumental, recorded or live- the device activates a lazer beam which projects a series of vibrant patterns of colored light.