Robert Moog, Toolmaker, 1934-2005
Yesterday's news of Robert Moog's death at the age of 71 was sobering, to say the least. My musical tastes have been at least partially indebted to his synthesizer since I purchased Wendy Carlos' Switched On Bach at the age of ten and insisted my music teacher play the tape during class (my classmates didn't get it). I had the good fortune of meeting Bob Moog when he gave a short lecture at my school on the history of the theremin--a lecture that quickly turned into a Q & A on the history of the Moog synthesizer. He only reluctantly acknowledged his influence as a pioneer of electronic music, seeing himself instead as an engineer devoted to musicians. To him, the Moog wasn't a revolution--it was a tool. In light of that, this paragraph in today's NYT coverage of Moog's life and work really resonated with me:
"Artist feedback drove all my development work," Mr. Moog said in an interview with the online magazine Salon in 2000. "The first synthesizers I made were in response to what [composer] Herb Deutsch wanted. The now-famous Moog filter was suggested by several musicians... The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use."
If you've ever played with a Moog, you know why people so loved using them; tweaking the knobs of an analog modular synthesizer is among the most gratifying things you'll ever do with a circuit. Musicians have accomplished so much with the Moog (and its numerous successors) because it's such an addictive tool--one of the most transformative to the arts in the last century. What Bob Moog did right in building his synthesizer is not much different from what we try to do as toolmakers today; he built a simple, gratifying tool and let its use dictate its design. To properly honor Robert Moog's achievements, you have to see him not only for his influence on music, but also for his devotion to the craft of user interface design. In fact, to anybody whose work involves the creation of tools--analog, digital, mechanical, whatever--I would say, simply: consider Robert Moog.
electronic music-ish , geek-ish , interface-ish , music-ish by tangentialist at 07:36 PM on 22 Aug 05 | Perm-a-link | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
4' 33" Revisited
John Cage's 4' 33" is the kind of work that pretty much defines a composer to the general public, who have, for the most part, never heard the piece performed.
Today, L pointed me at this cool televised BBC Symphony performance of 4' 33". The editing and camera work is just what I hoped for; most of the shots are standard symphonic close-ups of the different sections, and medium shots of the conductor, but the camera takes in just enough of the audience to help make sense of what Cage was really trying to achieve with the piece (contrary to how it is typically described, as "four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence", 4' 33" is really about the audience's experience of sound in the absence of performance). I think it's great documentation, and a great performance; if you've kind of skipped over 4' 33", take some time to watch the video. The piece is more enjoyable than you might think.
The week I started college at Bard was the week John Cage died; as a result of that lucky chance (which would have delighted Cage, I imagine), the first week or so of my orientation to college life was filled with performances, readings, and quotes by John Cage. My professor in those first few days, Catherine Schieve, was part of Bard's controversial Music Program Zero, and really took Cage's death as a starting point for our Language and Thinking class. One of the first things she did was type out his quotes onto a sheaf of notecards and leave them on a music stand in front of MPZ's cottage in the woods. We were all asked to go to the woods to pick up a quote after class one day and meditate on it (mine was "Refuse value judgments", which is a great quote. Har, har).
All that exposure to Cage in my impressionable college-in-the-woods years has made me pretty tolerant to minimalism. Take with you this famous quote, and live by it (along with my value judgment mantra):
"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." - John Cage, 1912-1992
bard-ish , john cage-ish , music-ish by tangentialist at 02:04 PM on 23 Mar 05 | Perm-a-link