It’s Bob Moog’s Birthday. What Would You Tell Him, If He Were Still Alive?

It’s Bob Moog‘s 77th birthday. At least, it would have been, if he were still alive.

Moog Music engineer Steve Dunnington put together this ‘Mooged-out’ switched on version of Happy Birthday to commemorate the occasion, envisioning it as “stylistic mashup of Kraftwerk and Jean-Jacques Perry.”

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Moog a couple of times at the NAMM convention. I didn’t really talk with him in any depth, though, because it was clear that he was a very quiet and reserved man and was a bit uncomfortable with the attention he received.

I’m happy to have met him, though, because his work has had a huge influence on the music that I listen to and the way that I live my life.

Michelle Moog-Koussa, Director of the Bob Moog Foundation, shared a document today that is Bob Moog’s personal statement, written in November 1951, as part of his college application process.

He had some surprisingly honest and prescient things to say:

I devote most of my spare time to music and electronics research. I consider myself somewhat of an introvert, but I am not anti-social.

My vocational goal is that of an electronic engineer. My goal is to be an enlightened and respected member of my community. I believe that a college education will allow me to execute my ambitions.

Moog is recognized as the father of the synthesizer as we know it – so I’d say he executed on his ambitions.

What would you tell Bob Moog, if he were still alive today? How has his work influenced your life?

13 thoughts on “It’s Bob Moog’s Birthday. What Would You Tell Him, If He Were Still Alive?”

  6. Moog, or at least his work, changed my life when I was about 13 and started getting into electronic music.

    Back then, you'd hear records and they'd blow your mind in ways that few records do nowadays. You'd hear sounds and you'd have no idea what the hell you were hearing. It was like tripping while you were sober and completely lucid. I wore out turntable needles listening to Klaus Schulze and Jan Hammer's The First Seven Days, and then later, music by guys like Michael Stearns.

    Unless you were alive back then, you can't imagine how mindblowing Clockwork Orange was with its Walter Carlos soundtrack.

    Just about everything I've done with my life since then has been an effort to recapture that initial awe I had when I first heard those electronic sounds.

    I hope that Bob Moog understood that he did change people's lives with the work that he did.

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