Archives - 1978
PTM World of Music
November 1978
Moog Analyzes The Evolution Of The Synthesizer
by JOHN NORTON, Associate Editor
One of the most volatile facets of the music industry is the synthesizer.
According to statistics provided by AMC, synthesizer sales have been the highest
ever recorded. In recent years the percentage of sales has even topped that of
the piano and guitar. This phenomenal growth and expansion is one that has made
many dealers in the country sit up and take notice. To truly understand the
intrinsic value of the synthesizer, as well as its growth, we contacted Dr.
Robert Moog, creator of the Moog Synthesizer.
Supported by an illustrious academic career, Ph.D. in engineering/physics
and two bachelor of science degrees in electronic engineering and physics, Dr.
Moog took us back to 1964 when he and Herb Deutsch first conceived the idea for
the synthesizer.
“Herb was interested in composing electronic music on tape,” said Moog.
“This is not transcribing traditional formal music, but making a new kind of
music that is only tone color rather than melody and harmony. In the simple
electronic circuits that I built, Herb found a means for making a great variety
of musical textures which was my primary goal at the time. Both Herb and I had
no vision of a complete musical instrument and certainly of no commercial
aspects coming out of our venture.”
Finally, what did come out of all their labors was the prototype for the
synthesizer. Out of their collaboration came the prototype which turned out to
be the basic ideas behind the voltage control of the electronic synthesizer. Not
only an innovative and creative unit, but a product with the capability of
commercial aspects beyond Moog’s and Deutsch’s dreams. They demonstrated and
exhibited these prototypes at the Audio Engineering Society Convention in the
fall of 1964. It was here that they received their first orders.
We asked Moog if back in 1964 the synthesizer was received well or sluffed
off as just another gimmick, an electronic toy. “It was certainly received with
an open mind, compared to the other receptions which we had,” stated Moog. “The
people who attended the Audio Engineering Society Convention were the people who
make and sell professional audio equipment. These men and women were seriously
involved in the recording and commercial music business. Our first two orders
were from Allan Nicolai, a well known choreographer in New York City. The
equipment he bought from us at the show was used for all his dances. As far as I
know, he is still using that very same equipment.”
“Our second customer,” continued Moog, “was an important commercial
composer. He was one of the men who founded the whole concept of singing
commercials, back when ‘Pepsi Cola hit the spot’. He was the first one to
utilize the synthesizer in the making of radio and television commercials.”
After three continued years of rising success, Dr. Moog incorporated his
company in 1967 and was in the business of exclusively producing synthesizers.
“We had two very good years in 1969 and 1970”, stated Moog. “They were on
the heels of Walter Carlos’ album, Switched on Bach, which used our
synthesizer.
About then the recession hit and the commercial music business died. The
market for studio synthesizers was saturated. Moog did not know it at the time,
but the market was shifting rapidly from a professional audio equipment market
to a musical instrument market. In 1970, Moog came out with the Mini—Moog. In
order to get the capital to develop the Mini—Moog and to exploit this new
market, he merged with a company called Musonics and out of that came a new
company called Moog Music, Inc. Moog Music, Inc. eventually came to an agreement
with Norlin Music to produce the Moog.
Though many parties were interested in the synthesizer, the popularity of
Moog still had not reached its peak. We wondered if there was any one group of
people that Dr. Moog could recall that realized the implications of the
synthesizer in changing the industry at this time.
“The history of electronic music,” Moog said, “goes way back before the
synthesizer. Ever since the end of World War II, there were an awful lot of
serious composers working in laboratories around the world, experimenting with
the ideas and equipment for putting music together by means of tape recorders.
They were the people we first had in mind when creating the prototype of the
synthesizer, because they were our only contact. This was also Herb Deutsch’s
interest.”
“The first musician we visited,” Moog said, “was a man by the name of
Myron Schaeffer. He was the head of the electronic music studio at the
University of Toronto and since we were just a short trip away from Toronto,
Herb and I decided that as soon as the prototypes were done, we would drive up
and show them to Schaeffer. His response was as enthusiastic as ours about what
we had created in our labs.” “From there on,” Moog continued, “we exhibited at
conventions, meetings, and colleges. I was aiming at the academic people because
I just did not have a means, at that time, of contacting commercial musicians.”
Both Moog and Deutsch were greeted in the academic world with quizzical,
and even at times, hostile reactions to their product. Yet they did find
acceptance in the experimentally minded individuals who plugged in to what Moog
and Deutsch were trying to achieve with their prototypes. The first group of
sales went to places such as the University of Illinois, Columbia, the Princeton
Electronic Music Center, and the University of Toronto.
Moog describes the acceptance of his synthesizer as coming in waves. The
first wave, he told us, was the academic acceptance from the universities.
Second were those who served Madison Avenue; those who produced
commercials. He told us that at the time he was fortunate to have a
representative in New York City who was a professional musician, by the name of
Walter Sear. They found only marginal acceptance on Madison Avenue with their
product.
One of the musicians Sear introduced to Moog and Deutsch was Walter
Carlos who was working as a recording engineer in New York City. As mentioned
before, Walter Carlos was the composer of the album Switched on Bach. This
turned out to be a major turning point for Moog.
“Ordering a synthesizer from us, one component at a time,” Moog said,
“plus his own built mixing console, Carlos supplied us with a lot of very
important ideas for developing the synthesizer.”
It was Carlos’s records that started the “third wave” in the final
development of the synthesizer.
“The fourth wave came from the exposure of television and radio
commercials and through some fairly popular LP’s,” added Moog. “The performing
musicians got going and guys like Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
continued this wave. I think that is pretty much where we are today. Almost
every professional musician at this point at least knows about the synthesizer,
if he does not already own one.”
The future seems to hold as many changes for the synthesizer as the past
has. We asked Dr. Moog to take us into the future in order to view anymore
innovations or developments that might be in store for the synthesizer.
“I think the electronic organ and the polyphonic synthesizer are going
to be more like one another in the future. Ten years from now it will be
practically impossible to determine which is the polyphonic synthesizer and
which is the organ. I think the organ/synthesizer of the future will be the
basic ax of the keyboardist.”
“Another area which I feel the synthesizer will dominate in the future,”
continued Moog, “is in school music. I feel that there is a great need for the
synthesizer in school music. There is an abundance of students these days who
would have the musical experience more easily with the electronic equipment than
they would with brass or string instruments. All types of children are
different. Some like to sing, some like to fiddle and even some who like knobs
and slides. That is the way children are. There is nothing good or bad about
it.”
Moog feels that for every hour of effort, a student can come forth with
better sounding music faster playing a synthesizer than he can playing a
trumpet. As an example of this, Moog has tapes of programs going on right now in
Japan where junior high school students are playing nothing but synthesizers.
Under the leadership of a teacher, they are able to produce an ensemble
performance of traditional music.
“While I certainly do not have anything against discipline practices on an
instrument,” Moog said, “with an awful lot of children in school today its
either something easy to play or nothing at all because many just do not have
the will or the time.
Moog feels that not only the school music programs must become more aware
of the synthesizer but also dealers must become more aware of the synthesizer as
a musical instrument. Dr. Moog feels that the dealer must convey information to
his customers about the synthesizer and not just let the synthesizer sell
itself.
“There are a lot of synthesizer customers,” said Moog, “who are only
interested in this instrument because their favorite performers, such as the
Doobie Brothers or Rick Wakeman own and play one. However, I do not feel that
this is your typical synthesizer customer and certainly we do not depend on this
factor for growth in the business. The growth does come from the guy who, after
studying all about the instrument, is living and breathing electronic music.
“This customer,” continued Moog, “ultimately sees the synthesizer as a
part of the whole package. He sees the instrument in its perspective. I think
the dealers have to acknowledge that the serious synthesizer customer needs
facts and information. He does not need hype.”
We asked Dr. Moog what his plans are for the immediate future. We were
then informed that he will be opening a company called Big Briar, Inc. located
in North Carolina.
“We have a rather large instrument that is being made now for the Indiana
University,” said Moog, “which we have been working on now for many years. It is
going to be completed within the next year or two. This instrument will feature
a J~*yboard that is touch sensitive in many dimensions.”
tr. Moog will be working on many other projects that at this time he did
not wish published. In addition to this he will be doing consulting and writing
for other publications.
For those dealers and other interested parties, Dr. Moog has told us that
his company will be in operation sometime early next year. His address will
simply be Big Briar, Inc., Leicester, North Carolina 28748.