[sdiy] Rest In Peace Bob

[Paul Higgins]

Although I had heard of Dr. Moog's serious illness recently, the news 
of his passing came as a surprise nonetheless.  In the spirit of the 
other posts on this topic, I thought I'd add to the discussion in some 
small way.

Years ago, in my days as a theory/comp major at the University of 
Minnesota, the late Dr. Lloyd Ultan (professor at the School of Music) 
told me a story about the man.  I believe that Ultan first met Moog at 
Cornell University, where Moog was working on his Ph.D.  At that time, 
of course, synthesizers were really a specialist's tool, developed 
primarily for avant-garde composers.  Ultan was a young member of that 
avant-garde circle, just beginning his academic career.  The story goes 
that Ultan was present when Moog got the call that his Ph.D. thesis had 
passed final review.  Moog's wife baked a rum cake for the celebration 
that was sufficiently rum-soaked as to be a flammability hazard around 
sparks or open flames, and as Ultan put it, "the rest of the evening I 
don't recall too well".  So that's a little picture of the kind of 
person Moog was.

I should add that the University of Minnesota still owns and maintains 
a fairly large Moog modular (sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable on the 
various models, so I don't know which one it is).  I've used it on a 
couple of occasions.  Last I saw it, they had it hooked up to a J.L. 
Cooper MIDI-CV interface so they could run it from a computer sequencer.

I think what impressed me most about Moog, both from the stories I 
heard from Dr. Ultan and from seeing him interviewed on TV (the last 
time I saw Moog was on TechTV), was that he really listened to what 
composers and musicians needed in an instrument.  Rather than forcing 
them into using inferior technology that might have been easier to 
design, Moog aimed higher and attempted to create a lasting instrument. 
  So Dr. Moog will indeed be missed, but he also leaves a real legacy to 
us in his work: instruments that like Stradivari will long outlive 
their creator.

Ars longa, vita brevis...

-PRH

On Sunday, Aug 21, 2005, at 23:46 US/Central, tomg wrote:

> It's true.
> http://moogmusic.com/
>
> My sympathies to his family. He will be greatly missed.
>
> Regards
> Tom