Saturday 24 May 2014

Music + Moog = Control


“Because the Buchla and the Moog opened up the possibilities of controlling sound across its entire spectrum in so many diverse ways,” synth pioneer Bernie Krause explained to me via Skype, “– well, for me, it changed the whole idea of music.

“There are a lot of definitions of music. But for Paul [Beaver] and me, when we wrote the Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music, we were asked at that time to define what music was. And it was very clear, with the synthesizer, that music was control of sound and that made the change for us. We then understood what it was. Finally.”

I spoke to Bernie Krause, former west coast dealer to the R.A. Moog Co. and synthesizer consultant to groups such as The Monkees, The Doors, and The Byrds, for this article at The Quietus, The Stradivarius of the Synthesizer: Fifty Years of the Moog. You can also hear me chatting about the Moog on Tom Robinson’s 6Music show this Sunday evening, Now Playing, between 18:00 and 20:00.