Robert Moog Quotations

My transition from scientist to entrepreneur? Some would say that I still haven't made that transition.

One always has to remember these days where the garbage pail is, because it's so easy to make sounds, and to put sounds together into something that appears to be music, but it's just as hard as it always was to make good music.

I was never worried that synthesizers would replace musicians. First of all, you have to be a musician in order to make music with a synthesizer.

I happen to think that computers are the most important thing to happen to musicians since the invention of cat-gut which was a long time ago.

Leon Theremin's original designs are elegant, ingenious and effective. As electronics goes, the theremin is very simple. But there are so many subtleties hidden in the details of the design. It's like a great sonnet, or a painting, or a speech, that is perfectly done on more than one level.

Everything has some consciousness, and we tap into that. It is about energy at its most basic level.

My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff, but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians.

When a pianist sits down and does a virtuoso performance he is in a technical sense transmitting more information to a machine than any other human activity involving machinery allows.

To those of you who are wearing ties, I think my dad would appreciate it if you took them off.

Other kids went out and beat each other up or played baseball, and I built electronics.

I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers... They use my tools.

I had been building electronic musical instruments since I was a kid.

The mini-Moog was conceived originally as a session musician's axe, something a guy could carry to the studio, do a gig and walk out.

The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use.

What inspires me is not so much the music as the opportunity to interact with composers. I think that has driven everything I've done.

By the time I got to building synthesizers, I had perhaps 20 years' experience building electronic musical instruments.

I'm finishing building a house and setting up a shop to build custom electronical musical instruments.

There are confirmed stories of people who can break instruments and cause them to fail by walking in a room. I'm the opposite - I can walk into a room and something will work better than it is supposed to.

Back in the '40s and early '50s, building simple electronic projects was a popular hobby of many people. Back then, you could buy, you know, a few parts and - with tubes and build something on your kitchen table, and it would actually work.

When I opened the T-burg shop, I thought I was going into the electronic kit business, ... Then I met a composer who wanted to make electronic music on tape. We got together just for fun.

To me the synthesizer was always a source of new sounds that musicians could use to expand the range of possibilities for making music.

It's certainly more than a technological activity, although we instrument designers certainly use electronic technology as a design tool. But I wouldn't call it an artistic activity. We're toolmakers. Making tools is a craft, maybe even a high craft. I'd say that we are craftsmen rather than artists.

I'm an engineer, ... I see myself as a toolmaker, and the musicians are my customers. They use the tools.

In the final weeks of his life, he was bedridden,

He brought electronic music to the masses and changed the way we hear music.

Back in the 40s and early 50s, building simple electronic projects was a popular hobby of many people. Back then, you could buy, you know, a few parts and - with tubes and build something on your kitchen table, and it would actually work.

By the time I got to building synthesizers, I had perhaps 20 years experience building electronic musical instruments.

Part of what I do is a craft, but part of what I do is a science. And I guess the craft comes in knowing what science to use and what science not to use.