Analog days : the invention and impact of the Moog synthesizer / Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pinch, T. J. (Trevor J.)

Contributor:

Trocco, Frank.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Moog synthesizer.

Synthesizer (Musical instrument).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 368 pages) illustrations, portraits.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Tracing the development of the Moog synthesizer from its initial conception to its ascension to stardom in 'Switched-on Bach', this text conveys the consequences of a technology that would provide the soundtrack for a chapter in cultural history.

Though ubiquitous today, available as a single microchip and found in any electronic device requiring sound, the synthesizer when it first appeared was truly revolutionary. Something radically new--an extraordinary rarity in musical culture--it was an instrument that used a genuinely new source of sound: electronics. How this came to be--how an engineering student at Cornell and an avant-garde musician working out of a storefront in California set this revolution in motion--is the story told for the first time in Analog Days , a book that explores the invention of the synthesizer and its impact on popular culture. The authors take us back to the heady days of the 1960's and early 1970's, when the technology was analog, the synthesizer was an experimental instrument, and synthesizer concerts could and did turn into happenings. Interviews with the pioneers who determined what the synthesizer would be and how it would be used--from inventors Robert Moog and Don Buchla to musicians like Brian Eno, Pete Townshend, and Keith Emerson--recapture their visions of the future of electronic music and a new world of sound. Tracing the development of the Moog synthesizer from its initial conception to its ascension to stardom in Switched-On Bach , from its contribution to the San Francisco psychedelic sound, to its wholesale adoption by the worlds of film and advertising, Analog Days conveys the excitement, uncertainties, and unexpected consequences of a new technology that would provide the soundtrack for a critical chapter of our cultural history.

Contents:

Foreword by Robert Moog Preface Introduction: Sculpting Sound 1. Subterranean Homesick Blues 2. Buchla's Box 3. Shaping the Synthesizer 4. The Funky Factory in Trumansburg 5. Haight-Asbury's Psychedelic Sound 6. An Odd Couple in the Summer of Love 7. Switched-On Bach 8. In Love with a Machine 9. Music of My Mind 10. Live! 11. Hard-Wired-the Minimoog 12. Inventing the Market 13. Close Encounters with the ARP 14. From Daleks to the Dark Side of the Moon Conclusion: Performance Discography Sources Notes Glossary Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Discography: p. [325]-329).

ISBN:

9780674266469

0674266463

9780674042162

0674042166

OCLC:

923109005