Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the death of Bob Moog, creator of the eponymous synthesizer. While not the first synthesizer, it was the first to become well-known to the general public.
A big factor in that wider recognition was the 1968 release of Switched-On Bach. Here's the closing track from that album, which demonstrated once and for all that all those whirs and beeps could be used to actually make music.
It's worth pointing out that at the time, the Moog synthesizer could only play one note at a time, had no way of controlling the volume with the keys, and had no electronic memory for settings. Therefore what you hear in this track is the result of many hours of work, playing each part separately, changing all the parameters to get a different sound for the next part, and finally creating the crescendos in the final mix. That Carlos could produce a result that has all the sense of spontaneity found in the best music is remarkable.
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