Robert Moog, 71; his synthesizer transformed music
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Robert A. Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, died Sunday at his home in Asheville. He was 71.
An inoperable brain tumor had been detected in April, according to his company's website.
A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Mr. Moog to a create a business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars.
Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician. ''I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers," he said in 2000. ''They use the tools."
A native New Yorker, Mr. Moog bristled at hours of piano lessons he was forced to take growing up in Queens but had fun in the workroom of his father, a
After reading a magazine article about the theremin, he assembled one. Because of its wide range of octaves, the theremin can sound like a human voice, a stringed instrument, or a deranged animal, and it is manipulated by moving one's hands between two antennas.
Mr. Moog received a bachelor's degree in physics from Queens College, a master's degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University, and a doctorate in engineering physics from Cornell University.
According to the book ''Analog Days" (2002), a history of the Moog synthesizer, Mr. Moog walked into an elevator on his way to his Ph.D. defense and immediately became obsessed with the resonant frequency of the elevator: ''Bob started jumping up and down on the floor (and) somewhere between the fourth and fifth floors he hit the right frequency. The elevator suddenly started bouncing alarmingly in time with his jumps and ground to a halt. Four hours later he was rescued."
With inspiration from composer Herb Deutsch, he created the analog synthesizer and promoted it successfully at an audio engineering society convention in 1964. A novel feature of his instrument was its attack-decay-sustain-release envelopes, which control the way notes swell and fade.
By the end of that year, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first commercial modular synthesizer.
The instrument allowed musicians, first in a studio and later on stage, to generate a range of sounds that could mimic nature or seem otherworldly by flipping a switch, twisting a dial, or sliding a knob. Other synthesizers were already on the market, but Mr. Moog's stood out for being small, light, and versatile.
The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and other musicians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug experiences with their art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on their 1969 album ''Abbey Road"; a Moog was used to create an eerie sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film ''A Clockwork Orange."
Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of Mr. Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album ''Switched-On Bach" in 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.
Among the other classics using a Moog: the Who's ''Won't Get Fooled Again," and Stevie Wonder's epic ''Living for the City."
''Suddenly, there was a whole group of people in the world looking for a new sound in music, and it picked up very quickly," said Deutsch, the Hofstra University emeritus music professor who helped develop the Moog prototype.
''The Moog came at the right time," he said yesterday.
The popularity of the synthesizer and the success of the company named for Mr. Moog took off in rock as extended keyboard solos in songs by Manfred Mann, Yes, and Pink Floyd became part of the progressive sound of the 1970s.
''The sound defined progressive music as we know it," said Keith Emerson, keyboardist for the rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Along with rock, synthesizers developed since Mr. Moog's breakthrough helped inspire elements of funk, hip-hop, and techno.
Charles Carlini, a New York City concert promoter, staged Moogfest in May 2004 to mark a half-century since Mr. Moog founded his first company while still in college. Emerson, Rick Wakeman of Yes, and Bernie Worrell of Parliament/Funkadelic were among those who played.
Mr. Moog had ''this absent-minded professorial way about him," Carlini said.
''He's like an Einstein of music," Carlini said. ''He sees it like, there's a thought, an idea in the air, and it passes through him. Passing through him, he's able to build these instruments."
''A lot of people today don't realize what this man brought to the masses," Carlini said. ''He brought electronic music to the masses and changed the way we hear music."
A deliberate man with brushed-back white hair and a breast pocket packed with pens, Mr. Moog drove an aging
He spent the early 1990s as a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before turning full time to running his new instrument business, which was renamed Moog Music in 2002.
Mr. Moog leaves his wife, Ileana; two daughters, a son, a stepdaughter, and his former wife, Shireleigh Moog.
A public memorial is scheduled for tomorrow in Asheville.
Material from the 
