Sound technology pioneer Bob Moog’s birthday is May 23, and just about the whole Web will be in on the celebration.

Play Google like a Minimoog: Google’s Doodle, the image you see on their homepage, is one of their best yet: it’s a fully interactive, playable Minimoog synthesizer. You can even record and playback little musical sketches and share with friends. Since the Earth is round, Google Japan gets an early scoop. (Yes, the Moog sun will rise first on the land of Roland, Yamaha, and KORG.)

Bonus (for Web nerds): this all uses the Web Audio API, which promises to bring real sound into the browser. Check out the technical details on html5audio.org, but if you love synths, and you use the Internet, this is good news.

Get swag, save cash, benefit the Moog Foundation: Rags and riches will be on sale for your shopping pleasure, including a benefit for the Moog Foundation on Moog-logo merchandise and clothes, with 50% of proceeds going to the Foundation’s educational and historical mission, which goes far beyond just Bob Moog to synthesis in general. That one-day birthday sale includes the lovely new Moog travel mug (I need one, after mine sadly broke in the mail to Germany), and a huge knob on a t-shirt (nice). See image, below.

Moog Music is also discounting their iOS apps, in case you missed discount pricing on their superb Animoog synth.

I Want My Moog TV. But let’s get back to the man himself, with a series of videos shared by the folks at Moog Music.

From an 80s BBC TV special, here’s Bob Moog demonstrating the synthesizer:

Moog Music are painting their spiritual father and founder’s image on their offices in North Carolina; see a timelapse of this gorgeous mural:

And in the sweetest gesture for the day:

To #celebratebob on what would have been his his 78th birthday local Asheville piano teacher, Kim Roney, brought two of her pupils to the Moog Store to perform a song in celebration of Bob Moog’s life and legacy. Bob Moog is still inspiring creative exploration in children of all ages. Thank you Dr. Moog, Happy Birthday! How has Bob Moog inspired you? #celebratebob

Finally, here’s a five-part series on synthesis fundamentals that uses the Moog Voyager. That seems, perhaps, the best way to celebrate Bob Moog’s legacy: it’s a chance to learn ideas about sound that can allow you to unlock the world of electronic music. With that knowledge, you can use any synthesis, anywhere, with or without a Moog logo on it – or use your imagination to invent the next great music technology, something Bob Moog I’m sure would have loved to see you build.

Moog Music Inc. is proud to present Dr. Joseph Akins’ five part series on the fundamentals of synthesizer programming. Dr. Akins is an associate professor at Middle Tennessee State University and strives to teach his students a complete understanding of synthesizers and computers as tools for modern music production. In this five part series Dr. Akins uses a Voyager to teach the process through which a synthesizer’s sound is generated and the techniques needed to program your own sounds and sonic experiments. In part one of this five part series Dr. Akins gives a brief history of synthesizers, goes over basic synthesizer theory, and overviews basic signal flow.

http://www.moogfoundation.org/

We’re here today not just because people like synths, or electronic music, or even music itself, but because the advancement of technology depends on kids learning about science and math.

That was certainly the history of Bob Moog himself. What he got as a student opened up the doors to the knowledge and interests that gave the world Moog synthesizers. Dr. Moog himself long credited his education – as a youngster at Bronx High School of Science in New York City, studying physics at Queens College, Colombia, and Cornell, and even making kit Theremins and discovering electronics – for what would come. Look to any other synth pioneer, or modern inventor or software developer, and you’ll find a similar story.

That’s not to say we need to turn the entire population of the planet into synth builders. But what music technologists do inspires science just as science inspires music. A lot of the young boys and girls who played with Theremins – or, later, Moog synths – went on to advancements in everything from space exploration to medicine. People accomplished amazing things motivated in part by the politics of the Cold War. Imagine what we could do motivated by the desire to do new things – and make new sounds.

All of this makes the mission of the Moog Foundation vitally important. Led by Bob Moog’s daughter Michelle and an elite crack team of synth experts, they’ve already begun reaching kids in schools around Asheville, North Carolina and Jamaica. They’re using synths as a window into science and physics. (Waves underly huge amounts of the universe, and it’s tough to find a better way to understand those waves than playing an electronic musical instrument.)

A funding drive to take this local project national is about to run out of time, and it’s well short of its funding goal. So now’s a great time to look at the project and consider giving even a small amount of support.

You’ve got only a little time left: at the end of Thursday March 1, just before midnight, Eastern time, this fund drive is over.

There are two important things you should know.

First, the Moog Foundation is not associated with Moog Music, the private company started by Bob that makes products like the Voyager and Moogerfooger. The Moog Foundation is entirely independent, and not-for-profit. Science (science!), not selling Moogs, is their mission, and they’re driven by your support – not sales of gear.

Second, since it’s awesome to get swag along with your feelings of good will and acheivement, yes, we’re going public TV/radio fund drive here and telling you that you’re going to get some excellent stuff to commemerate your contribution and fill your studio (or the bumper of your car, if you’ve got one) with synth love.

Marc Doty, who has been involved with developing the curriculum, tells CDM more. (Marc is known recently in these parts when, in a bizarre instance of devil’s advocate, I wound up advocating analog synths and knobs and he iPad apps, all leading to some good discussion and I thought some nice insights.) He explains the mission of the project, and details the curriculum:

Bob Moog pursued his passion for musical instruments through his talent for electronics. As a result, his work changed the landscape of electronic music history, music history, and even history in general. The application of his creativity and innovation has resulted in tools and knowledge that inspired thousands from multiple generations.

It is the belief of the Bob Moog Foundation that the spirit of creativity and innovation evinced by Bob Moog has the power to continue to inspire; not just in regard to music, musical instruments, or electronics, but also in regard to creativity and innovation in general. We live in a time where unique and inspired approaches to problem solving make the difference between mediocrity and brilliance, and where a fresh outlook has the power to revolutionize thinking. Just like Bob’s work inspired a revolution in thinking.

Bob was an educator, so what better way to spread his legacy than through education?

Doctor Bob’s SoundSchool is a curriculum designed to portray the science of sound through the magic of music. It was authored in 2011 by a variety of skilled professionals who had been inspired by the work of Bob Moog, and is the result of their combined knowledge, talents, experiences, and inspiration. It focuses on the physics of sound, and delivers scientific content in an innovative and inspiring way consistent with aspects of Bob’s pursuits, as well as consistent with successful educational practice.

At the core of the curriculum is “The Wiggle.” The Wiggle is a creative way to portray the nature and behavior of sound which can be effectively and accurately demonstrated without simplification or generalization to students of all ages. The focus of the curriculum is the portrayal of the life cycle of the wiggle; how sound is generated, how it interacts with its environment, how it travels, how it is changed, and how it is perceived.

The curriculum is divided into 7 different sections; 5 of which address the nature and life cycle of The Wiggle. Using a variety of tools and media (including tuning forks, oscillators, and even real theremins!), the nature of sound is explored and revealed. The way sound is generated, the way it moves through various media, how it can be converted into electronic form, and how it it can be observed and measured are all covered in detail and in creative and compelling ways which are consistent with the multiple various learning styles of students.

One aspect of the curriculum is the “chain of sound.” This is a fun and creative set of cards which portrays sound in various ways from its origin to its perception that can be arranged in multiple configurations to portray the life cycle of the sound wave. Students can employ creative thinking in their arrangement of the cards, and the rules of arrangement help students understand the physical behavior of sound.

Currently, the curriculum is being implemented in Asheville City Schools at the 2nd grade level, which is the age at which the state standards suggest that the physics of sound should be introduced. This implementation is a test run where we fine tune our efforts through a process of measurement in regard to the effectiveness of the curriculum.

We are currently engaged in an Indiegogo campaign which will hopefully fund our efforts to expand Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool nationwide.

Marc Doty
Archive and Education Specialist

P.S. People still bring up our little interchange about the Animoog. It has been the source of a variety of interesting conversations! Thank you for that opportunity!

Thanks, Marc.

Among the prizes, pictured here: a Moog Voyager Select Series Synthesizer signed by Moog-inspired artists including Brian Eno, Moby, Wayne Coyne, Edgar Froese, Passion Pit, Chromeo, Ghostland Obervatory and many other bands who performed at Moogfest 2011. The Moog Foundation says donors can also win a VIP weekend for two to Moogfest 2012 featuring a stay at the breathtaking Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa in Asheville, NC and a pair of VIP tickets to Moogfest 2012.

But those nice bonuses aside, I think it’s worth noting that the entire impetus for the project came out of an outpouring of letters and support following Bob Moog’s death. It’s something we saw at CDM, and it’s fantastic to see out of what was initially grief, something new blossoming.

More information:
http://www.indiegogo.com/Bob-Moog-Foundation-Dr-Bobs-SoundSchool
www.moogfoundation.org
Photo gallery of Moogfest Voyager: http://bit.ly/wYY9mZ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/MoogFoundation
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BobMoogFoundation

And to see this in action, don’t miss:
Pilot Program of Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool Begins

What’s a “lab,” anyway? For music, any number of tools – software or hardware – can become gateways to creative musical explorations. Chris Stack joins us again to look at Nodal, Mac/Windows software that generates musical patterns from graphical maps of nodes, alongside hardware explorations. Along the way, Chris has some reflections on composition itself. -Ed.

Sometimes life imitates art. Sometimes life imitates avant-garde art. Random events placed together can often form surprising harmonies, causing daily affairs to resemble an aleatoric composition. This concept was brought to mind by the juxtaposition of a pair of recent events.

The first was downloading a demo of Nodal. I was immediately drawn to its unique way of making music. Setting up constantly-evolving soundscapes in multiple time signatures was a breeze. You create music by drawing networks of nodes. Nodes can trigger a set note or step through a list of pitches on each visit. The lines (“edges” in Nodal parlance) connecting them can transmit MIDI continuous controller commands and individual networks may be triggered by external MIDI notes. This is not your father’s sequencer.

I couldn’t wait to dive in, but the second event required me to postpone that for a bit. Event #2 was a visit to the Lake Eden Arts Festival: an incredibly enjoyable amassing of creativity held twice yearly on the grounds of the former Black Mountain College.

Black Mountain College was a progressive educational institution that was home to some of the leading innovators in the arts during the 30s, 40s and 50s. I listened to Maceo Parker play near the spot where Buckminster Fuller built his first geodesic dome and swayed to honky-tonk blues in a log hall where Merce Cunningham once danced. I visited the Bob Moog Foundation’s MoogLab exhibit on the grounds where Einstein was a guest lecturer, all the while thinking of the amazing things I could do with Nodal when I got home. The fact that Black Mountain College was also the site of John Cage’s first Happening also affected my Nodal thought experiments. The irony and beauty of that bit of aleatoric magic still makes me smile.

After the festival, I dove into Nodal headfirst and have had a great time experimenting. It has so far worked seamlessly with my softsynths and external hardware. Pitch lists, velocity lists, random branching and wormholes combined with analog and digital synths and controllers are opening new ways of creating and interacting with music. Cage would have loved it.

Links:

Aleatoric Composition [Wikipedia]

Nodal

Lake Eden Arts Festival

Black Mountain College

Bob Moog Foundation

Nodal provides one way of exploring music onscreen; Chris provides some images of the MoogLab’s hardware for more tactile sound manipulations. You know — for kids!

Many more sounds and explorations on Chris’ Tumblr site:
http://experimentalsynth.tumblr.com/

Previously, Chris shared some work that went from a tiny little phone all the way to a very big set of pedals: From a Little Droid to a Big Moog Taurus Pedal, Analog to Digital, More Experimental Sound Tips

Want to see hundreds of pieces of music kit from keyboards to oscilloscopes, plus some 1500 mini-Theremin toys for students, coupled with US-wide education to help introduce young people to science? That’s the idea behind a grant proposal by the Moog Foundation. The Foundation’s MoogLab teaches science through sound – a worthy cause. Not only was Bob Moog’s life in electronic music ignited by discovering the Theremin, but many of today’s generation of scientists and thinkers were raised on electronic sound kits a few short decades ago. Without the same exposure to science and sound, young boys and girls may not get on the same path.

If you like the idea, the project needs votes. Michael Gallant (formerly an editor Keyboard Magazine, still a contributor) writes with this update:

We are up for earning a $250K grant to take electronic music instruments into schools to teach under-served kids science via the Moog Foundation’s MoogLab program. The catch is that we’re ranked #92 now by public vote and we need to be #1 or #2 by the end of December in order to win the funding.

Voting is daily; that is, vote early, vote often. Voting every day in December gives the project you want better chances.

More information:
http://www.refresheverything.com/bobmoogfoundation

The Refresh Everything grant aside, I’d love to hear more discussion of how to bring electronics and sound to young people around the world – your ideas are certainly welcome.

The Bob Moog Foundation is still urgently seeking support so it can work to preserve not only Bob Moog’s legacy, but his massive archives pertaining to the history of music technology in general. Propellerhead is donating money and came up with the lovely idea of sharing a free ReFill for Reason 4 for the occasion. Reason 4 users, have a go and enjoy, and to everyone, the foundation really could use your support.

The ReFill sounds like nice stuff. Vintage synth gurus Mark Vail (Keyboard), Craig Anderton (EQ), and Gordon Reid (Sound on Sound) contributed 20 patches in Reason 4′s Thor synth. Propellerhead explain — as though they have to explain who Bob Moog was — that “each time you use a sawtooth waveform in Thor” you’re experiencing his legacy. I’d say it’s in quite a lot more than just that sawtooth. Moog’s archives are some of the only documentation we have of those heady days, not only of his work but all the composers, musicians, and technologists around him.

Propellerhead and the Moog Foundation
Free ReFill Download
Official Moog Foundation Website, including online donations (which, nicely enough, come with free swag!)

Reason 4 users, let us know what you think, and if you have some Moog-inspired patches of your own you’d like to share, by all means, send them our way!

Previously, we spoke with Craig Anderton about Moog’s influence on the way he thinks about sound, about the Foundation’s work, and a sound set along these lines for Cakewalk’s Rapture:
Craig Anderton’s Tribute to Moog: Rapture Presets, and a Call to Save History

Craig Anderton is easily the most prolific music technology writer on the planet. We got an exclusive interview with him at Cakewalk at the NAMM show to talk about the technologist who has had the biggest impact on him: Bob Moog.

Craig talked to us about two projects, each a tribute to Moog’s legacy. First, there’s The Minimoog Tribute, an inexpensive expansion pack for Cakewalk’s Rapture and Rapture LE synths. Why another set of Moog samples, given there’s a fake Minimoog patch or thirty in just about every synth? Craig tells us he wanted to do something different: really create patches that “cover” the classics rather than duplicate them, taking advantage of samples of his personal Minimoog but blending them with Rapture’s digital capabilities.

Craig also talks about why he chose Rapture, because “it basically says twist my knobs, man, have a good time.” (I won’t touch that one.) In all seriousness, he describes the relationship with the synth as being a personal one.

And this isn’t just a preset pack. It’s got gear porn in it, too — cue the Moog porn bassline.

Craig Anderton’s MiniMoog Tribute Expansion Pack [Cakewalk]

Liz interviewed Craig for CDM at the Cakewalk booth:

NAMM08: Craig Anderton @ Cakewalk – Moog Tribute for Rapture [cdm@blip.tv]

But the real reason Craig wanted to have this interview wasn’t just to talk about his product — it was to make an impassioned plea for The Moog Foundation, which is working to save the vast archival materials Bob Moog collected through his life. They’re not just the history of Bob, or the history of Moog synthesizers: they’re a chronicle of the history of electronic music. And they now have met a formidable foe: humid southern weather. But you can help:

NAMM08: Craig Anderton @ Cakewalk – Moog Foundation [cdm@blip.tv]

A portion of the proceeds from the Minimoog expansion pack for Rapture will be donated by both Craig and Cakewalk to the fund, but even if you’ve only got $10 or $15, consider giving something directly to the foundation — or volunteer or contribute in other ways.

Moog Foundation Call to Action

Donation form

Have Moog synths influenced the way you use non-Moog synths and software? We’d love to hear how — aside from the obvious ways, of course. I know my approach to sound was deeply affected by using both the Buchla and Moog modular systems, even applying thinking about sound and synthesis to very different digital systems. Let us know in comments.