Legendary composer Wendy Carlos remembers Bob Moog in a moving set of recollections, music, and documents, including the music and thoughts she shared in a gathering in North Carolina shortly after his death last year. She goes far beyond Switched on Bach to talk about a long relationship with the instruments and their creator in her music making. (The drawing at the top of the page is her own.)
Somehow in the various memories I’ve seen over the past year I’d missed these. One excerpt:
Bob and I were friends for about 41 years. That sounds incomprehensible now, but there you are. We met when I accidentally woke him up. He was taking a much needed nap on a banquette on the Mezzanine of the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel, in NYC …
Ever modest, Bob always deferred on musical matters to those of us who came from that side of the art/tech equation. We, on the other hand, deferred to Bob on all engineering decisions and designs. From the beginning it was a balanced yin/yang relationship between a maker of musical tools and the artists who used those tools. It doesn’t seem to work that way much anymore, and more’s the pity.
Thanks to Kevin Phair for the heads-up.
