In Your Ear

There may have been more portable ones, and ones that had bigger libraries of sounds, but nothing else in the world sounds like a Moog.

Robert Moog, the creator of the electronic music synthesizer that bears his name and that became ubiquitous among both experimental composers and rock musicians in the 1960’s and 1970’s, died on Sunday at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 71.

The first Moog synthesizers were collections of modules, connected by electronic patch cords, something like those that connect stereo components. The first module, an oscillator, would produce a sound wave, giving a musician a choice of several kinds, ranging from the gracefully undulating purity of a sine wave to the more complex, angular or abrasive sounds of square and sawtooth waves. The wave was sent to the next module, called an A.D.S.R. (attack-decay-sustain-release) envelope generator, with which the player defined the way a note begins and ends, and how long it is held. A note might, for example, explode in a sudden burst, like a trumpet blast, or it could fade in at any number of speeds. From there, the sound went to a third module, a filter, which was used to shape its color and texture.

— Robert Moog, Music Synthesizer Creator, Dies, by Allan Kozinn, NYTimes.com, August 22, 2005

Music truly is color blind. It speaks to something undefinable (the soul perhaps?) that is present in all human beings. Sometimes, however, the difference between what your ears hear and your eyes see can make your head hurt.

Third to last day of freedom on my sabbatical and I hauled myself downtown for a free concert at Borders Books & Music near the White House to hear Joss Stone do a few songs from her first album The Soul Sessions. I admit I was curious. How could I not be curious?

The Soul Sessions is an album of covers that was meant to be an EP (four or five tracks), to get her out and start some buzz before the release of her first album of original music was released around Christmas. What it turned out to be was a ten track recording of some of the most gritty and arousing interpretations of tunes recorded live style (no overdubs, no editing) and featuring authentic soul musicians such as Latimore and Betty Wright. Not such a big deal, you say? Yeah it is when a voice like silk that’s able to make you feel the pain of rejection and imply the myriad shades of the wonder that is being in love comes out of a 5’6″ little blonde bit of a 16 year-old from the UK.

So, go listen to some samples from the album and then go buy the album (don’t be a jerk and get it off Kazaa even though someone has already put it out there).