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 - In Memory Of Synthesizer Inventor: Dr. Robert A. Moog -
8/22/05
(An open letter to Moog Music, Inc., the Moog family and all who care)


My Minimoog "Hal" and it's inventor, Bob Moog

I signed online today and read the headline "the Einstein of music has died"... and curiously clicked to see WHO was the Einstein of music?...and when I read WHO they were referring to, I wholeheartedly agreed. I will never forget the first time I met Bob at the Moog factory in Williamsville, NY, around 1973. Keith Emerson (of Emerson Lake & Palmer: ELP) had his large modular Moog in for repairs. I was so excited to be there... I was simply ecstatic. Bob Moog forever changed my life.


Bob Moog in the studio at Moog Music, Inc., Williamsville, New York

I remember the first time I noticed the Moog 'sound', in home room in high school in 1968. A friend of mine (Fred Marzulla) started playing Switched On Bach over the morning announcements. I got hooked right away. Then a family mentor, Lloyd Gehrlein, bought me a copy of the album... and there it was... the Moog Modular Synthesizer! I was totally WOWED! It was as if a miracle had happened... an instrument from the gods... a orchestra for the composer... a dream machine with which to build entirely new musical worlds... an instrument that allowed musicians to create and play anything they could think of! I WAS OBCESSED! (Not to mention that all those knobs, jacks and patch cords just made me crazy with magnetic curiosity!).

As a teenager, I was very interested in electronics, and even had a TV repair shop (Telaray Electronics) in my mom's basement. But I was a musician first... studying piano, and played trumpet & string bass in the Warren Western Reserve High School marching and concert band. After H.S., I went to Youngstown State University Dana School Of Music, with a major in music theory and composition.

In 1972, my mother & I took out a loan on her 1968 VW Beetle and we bought the Minimoog Model D for $1250. The Moog synthesizer fused my two major fields of interest together: music and electronics. This unexpected fusion of technology & art forged the long term direction of my entire life.  

Birth Of A Band:
In 1972, I had a chance to co-found a group, joining some of the area's best rock musicians, creating 'I Don't Care', who had made quite a big name for themselves throughout N.E. Ohio and Cleveland during the early seventies.  

I bought a case for my Minimoog... and carried it with me at all times for 6 years... club after club, concert date after concert date. I had a bunch of keyboards in the IDC band, (Hammond A-100 w/Leslie, Fender Rhodes, Mellotron, Honer Clavinet, Melody Grand Upright piano) but my Minimoog is the only survivor! I still have it today, and it still looks like the day I bought it! Mine was built using Walnut wood from the Moog families' property. I'll never forget bringing it home that 1st day. I put some headphones on, and experimented with it for hours and days... and ended up traveling to a place I've never (yet) come back from! My Minimoog was aptly named HAL after the super computer in the Kubrick film, '2001 Space Odyssey.'  I was 'one of the very 1st' to use a Minimoog synthesizer "live" in Cleveland rock clubs and venues. The club owners used to come up to the band leader and say: " what's your keyboard player playing over there? Tell him to shut it off!" We never listened to them! ;P

Emerson Lake & Palmer played in Cleveland and I had a chance to go see them... and I was so impressed with their musicianship. ELP had become popular with their hit 'Lucky Man' and so we started playing the song... wowing musicians and others who heard it. We also used to play a shortened version of ELP's 'Tarkus' arranged around 'America' (by Emerson's former band The Nice.) The IDC band evenutally went on to release their first (and only) album, "Ask Anyone" on Buddah Records in 1976. SEE: I Don't Care - Website

Due to this recent jolt of inspiration concerning Bob Moog...  I dug out this 1973 practice room cassette recording. It's a shame it was recorded on a fairly poor cassette deck, through the rehearsal room's mixing board. But through the hiss & distortion, the music & our performance is clearly intact. This recording features Boggess' arrangement & performance of an excerpt of ELP's "TARKUS" and a version of "AMERICA", by Keith Emerson's former group, The Nice, an adaptation from Leonard Bernstein's score for the musical, "West Side Story."

This recording features (3) of (7) I Don't Care band members:
Jose Ortiz - percussion
Tim Graziano - bass
Gary Boggess - Hammond A-100, Fender Rhodes & Minimoog
(no overdubs here... this was as we played it at gigs, live in the early '70's!)
Download MP3 Soundfile: Tarkus-America-IDC.mp3
(Click to play or RIGHT click and SAVE TARGET AS to a folder) 


Gary Boggess (1974)    

A Lifetime Of Inspiration:
Since high school, I had yearned to buy a multi-track tape recorder and create orchestral sounding music like Wendy Carlos had done with her 'Switched On' series of LP's on Columbia Records. The gear was too expensive... and I had to buy keyboards and amps for my IDC gigs. But, I bought every synthesizer album I could find, listening and learning everything I could with my ears. I bought every book I could afford about the history, develoment & techniques of electronic music production... and read them on the way to IDC gigs.  In 1974, I finally bought a Dokorder 4-track deck and started my life long quest to produce music using my own studio orchestra.  When I quit the IDC band in 1976, I started my first studio, Musico Technilab (now Boggess Music & Sound), and started writing music for commercials, scoring theatre plays, and recording my own music. These are the foundations that led to my current studio, Boggess Music & Sound - Studio in Tampa, Florida.

During the years between 1977 and 1979 I had the pleasure and honor of meeting with Wendy Carlos in New York City a few times... who together, with Bob Moog and Keith Emerson, had influenced my life in music and left a mark on my career and my life's work forever. These two people led me to pursue a life based on music, multi-track recording, (now MIDI) and using synthesizers (samplers and etc) to create my music. They both introduced me to ELECTRONIC MUSIC, and this life path is a part of every morning and every night of my life. Both have inspired me in so many ways... and both had pioneered and had made musical achievements that impressed my young life immeasurably. At 53, I am still (figuratively) trying to make them proud!

Looking Back & Ahead:
I had made a few trips to Moog Music in Williamsville.. getting to know people like Ron Folkman, Alan Pearce and Tom Lamb. I took some of my first tape recordings to play for Bob in the Moog studio. I still have a letter from Tom Lamb encouraging me to keep up the great work... and a signed photo from Bob Moog. While there, I had become familiar with many at Moog Music, including the "investor" Willie... (I think that was his name.) I remember being so unhappy when I heard the Moog Factory went out of business. And in July of 2002 (after moving here to Florida) I was flabbergasted to learn that Bob had FINALLY bought the brand name of Moog back!!!!!! I was relieved for him and the Moog family's legacy.

I still use my Minimoog. I am currently working with a band (Corridor) and we're using the Minimoog on their album! IT'S now 33 years old and still works perfectly and sounds fantastic!!!! My facility is a state of the art music and film audio post facility here north of Tampa, Florida, were I work full time as a composer, arranger, producer and sound effects designer/sound editor and mixer. Eventually I bought a larger Model-10 Moog. And after Moog Music was gone... ended up buying a Polyfusion 2000 from former Moog engineers, Alan Pearce and Ron Folkman.

I could go on and on. As my personal tribute to Bob, I'm taking his signed photo out (still safely buried in my hefty steel file cabinet) and I'm buying a nice frame... and will be hanging it prominently on the wall here at Boggess Music & Sound... ASAP.

THANK YOU BOB MOOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To say you will be missed is an vast understatement. Thank you Bob for all your wonderful contributions to NEW music, music making, creative instrument design, your brainstorming and WILD AND CRAZY ideas for all of us to enjoy! To say thanks is just pathetically pathetic... but Webster's offers few other sincere words to substitute for expressing gratitude at a time like this. THANK YOU BOB. THANKS TO THE MOOG FAMILY. THANKS TO ALL THE MOOG MUSIC FAMILY, HIS CO-WORKERS AND ALL THOSE WHO HELPED BOB MOOG MAKE HIS DREAMS, AND REALLY, ALL OF OUR DREAMS COME TRUE!!!!

Sincerely and in Remembrance and Deep Respect of Bob...

Gary Boggess
Boggess Music & Sound

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8/21/05

Electronic Music Pioneer Bob Moog Dies At 71

Asheville, NC (August 22, 2005)--Electronic music pioneer and founder of Moog Music Inc., Dr. Robert Moog, died yesterday afternoon at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 71. Dr. Moog had been diagnosed with brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM) in late April 2005. He had received both radiation treatment and chemotherapy to help combat the disease.

He is survived by his wife, Ileana, his four children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa, and Renee Moog; his step-daughter Miranda Richmond; and the mother of his children, Shirleigh Moog.

Moog Music Inc. company president, Michael Adams, shared the following thoughts about Bob:

"Bob has been such a huge inspiration to all of us. In losing him, we lose a creator, visionary and friend. He was someone who taught us well and he was proud of this company and its people. Bob shaped music in deep and meaningful ways by changing how music could be produced and ultimately, how it would sound. He contributed to a new soundscape--a legacy that we will continue in his honor. He was a musical pioneer for the love of it and musicians everywhere have had the opportunity to expand their own creative horizons with Bob's inventions. He will truly be missed by all of us, but we take comfort in the fact that his musical innovations will live on in the music he inspired and the products we will continue to make."

Moog started building theremins as a teenager and established the R.A. Moog Company in 1954. One of the first electronic musical instruments, the theremin provides a unique, tremulous sound and is played without the thereminist touching it. In 1963, Moog created the first Moog Modular synthesizer, with the more portable Minimoog following in 1970. The Minimoog opened the world of synthesized music to thousands of musicians. Moog sold Moog Music in 1971 to Bill Waytena who then sold it to Norlin Music in 1975. Moog left Moog Music, a division of Norlin Music in 1977. In 1978, Moog founded Big Briar Inc., in the mountains of Western North Carolina, which then took the Moog Music name in May 2002. Today, the Asheville-based company designs and builds high-quality analog synthesizers, guitar effects modules, theremins, and a unique controller for acoustic piano called the PianoBar.

Moog remained active with the company up to the day he was diagnosed with cancer. Adams, who has been president of Moog Music since May 2002, noted, "Bob and I had been planning his retirement for next year, and in that process we identified two very talented people to continue Bob's legacy of musical innovations, Steve Dunnington and Cyril Lance. Steve is a graduate of UNC-Asheville's Recording Arts Music program. He has worked closely with Bob since 1994. Cyril is a senior engineer with a degree in physics from Cornell University."

Moog's instruments have influenced many styles of music from jazz to rock, R&B to classical. Moog keyboards can be heard in the music of artists as diverse as funk masters Parliament and Funkadelic; rock icons Yes, the Beatles, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer; and jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. Today, top musicians still seek out Moog instruments. Moog keyboards and the music they helped create have enjoyed a strong following among players and aficionados. The sound of a Moog is truly distinctive--artists and competitors around the world speak of the "Moog sound." And the original theremins designed by Moog enjoy a renaissance today. They are used by popular groups and serious musicians for effects, electronica and classical music. Musicians and studio technicians across many musical genres have woven the timeless Sound of Moog into an integral part of our musical culture.

Bob Moog was a warm, outgoing man who enjoyed meeting people from all over the world. He especially appreciated what his wife says he called "the magical connection" between music-makers and their instruments.

Moog received a BS in Physics from Queens College (New York City), a BS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University (New York City), and his PhD in Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 1965. He received his honorary doctorates from Polytechnic University, Lycoming College, and Berklee College of Music. His many awards include the Silver Medal of The Audio Engineering Society, the Trustee's Award in 1970 and a Technical Grammy in 2002 from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Billboard Magazine Trendsetter's Award, Seamus award from the Society of Electroacoustic Music in the United States, and the Polar Music Prize from The Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He wrote and lectured extensively on a variety of topics in music technology and man-machine interface, and contributed major articles to Encyclopedia Britannica and the Encyclopedia of Applied Physics.

A public memorial celebration is planned at the Orange Peel in Asheville, N.C. for noon on Wednesday, August 24. Fans and friends can also direct their sympathies or remembrances to www.caringbridge.com/visit/bobmoog.

Moog's family has established The Bob Moog Foundation dedicated to the advancement of electronic music in his memory. Many of his longtime collaborators including musicians, engineers and educators have agreed to sit on its executive board including David Borden, Wendy Carlos, Joel Chadabe, John Eaton, David Mash, and Rick Wakeman. For more information about the foundation, contact Matthew Moog at mattmoog@yahoo.com.

For photos or more information about Bob Moog or his musical innovations, please visit  www.moogmusic.com.

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