WHEN OUR FIRST ISSUE DEBUTED IN SEPTEMBER 1975, the musical possibilities offered by synthesizers were in early adolescence. Audiences were
accustomed to seeing multi-keyboard rigs on rock stages. Electronic organs,
some with early auto-accompaniment, served as entertainment centers in many
homes. Jazz had become a genre that was as respected and studied as classical.
Genre-benders like Chick Corea and Josef Zawinul were blowing minds with
this thing called fusion, Emerson and Wakeman had marshaled keyboards to
combine classical complexity with rock ’n’ roll bombast, and Keith Jarrett had
pushed spontaneous improvisation beyond what most jazzers thought
possible.
The common thread here is that talent and technology were converging
to bring the idea of the “keyboard
player” to a tipping point: something people wanted
to be—and something that people with different stylistic bents, amounts of
traditional musical training,
and levels of interest in technology could see themselves being.
We are therefore very pleased to present the first Keyboard Hall of Fame, a new yearly honor roll of individuals and
instruments that helped us all be the musicians we want to
be—via example, inspiration, and/or putting the tools in our
hands. One final word: Lists such as this inevitably generate
responses of, “I can’t believe you didn’t include so-and-so!”
We will—that’s exactly why we’re doing this every year.
BOB MOOG
(1934–2005)
PATRON SAINT OF SYNTHESIS
We have to confess to some initial pondering as to whether including Dr.
Robert A. Moog would be too obvious, or to put it another way, whether he
was more like the ground the Hall of Fame stood upon than anything that
could fit inside the edifice itself.
Miles of ink have been spilled about Dr. Moog in the pages of Keyboard—not to
mention by him, as he authored one of our first regular columns, “On Synthesizers”
—some of the very first published writing that aimed to explain
the basics of synthesis to the layman.
Dr. Moog wasn’t the only primordial synth designer, nor was his design
philosophy the only valid one. There can be no doubt, though, that he was
first to elevate synthesizers to mainstream cultural appreciation. This was
due partly to the playability of the synths themselves and partly to his cultivating
relationships with—and listening to feedback from—musicians.
When Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach won three Grammys in 1969, any
doubt that “serious” music could be played on these newfangled contraptions was
put to rest. At the other end of the spectrum, Keith Emerson’s
early and high-profile adoption of Moog modules cemented the synthesizer’s
position as a rock ’n’ roll instrument—a role that the Minimoog would
make available to the masses. In fact, the Mini became so ubiquitous that
“Moog”—to the understandable chagrin of some competitors—became for
a time a near-synonym for “synthesizer” in casual parlance, like “Xerox” for
copy machines.
Though Bob left us too soon in 2005, two organizations carry on his
legacy: the Moog Music company of today, which was born when Bob re-
gained the legal right to do business under his own name in 2002, and the
education- and preservation-focused Bob Moog Foundation, helmed by
his daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa. Need further proof of his influence?
On what would have been Moog’s 78th birthday, Google transformed their
logo into a playable “doodle” of a Minimoog. --STEPHEN FORTNER
JORDAN RUDESS
THE EVANGELIST
OF SHRED
It’s easy to point to Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman as elevating the
keyboard player to rock god status—and entirely appropriate, because
they did. But where the heady times during which Emerson and Wakeman
became famous made them seem otherworldly and supernatural,
Jordan
Rudess may well hold the title of Most Accessible Rock Star Ever.
His credentials are supernatural enough: At age nine, he went to Julliard.
He’s played with the Dixie Dregs and David Bowie. In 1994, he was
voted Best New Talent in the Keyboard readers’ poll. He’s toured with
legendary synth player Jan Hammer. He currently makes his home in
Dream Theater, the prog-metal band whose fans’ rabidity is matched only
by devotees of Dethklok or Amanda Palmer. Seeing him execute a solo up
close, there’s an effortless speed and precision that seems to occur outside
of known physics.
All that ability is enough to make even the most well-intentioned
wizard feel detached from the rest of us muggles, but if you meet Jordan,
he proves to be a patient and passionate educator who seems to want everyone to
play as well as he does—or at least to feel the joy of playing as
well as one can. He has embraced alternative musical interfaces such as
the Haken Continuum and Eigenharp, performed with students in college
ensembles such as the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, and conceived iOS apps
(MorphWiz, SampleWiz, and SpaceWiz) that can seduce even avowed musiphobes into
making sounds.
Wanna be a well-rounded and ass-kicking keyboardist for the modern
era? Check out Jordan Rudess, and then get busy. After all, the keyboard
world shouldn’t have to wait too long for its next hero. . . . --STEPHEN
FORTNER
MARCUS RYLE
THE REASON YOU HAVE A STUDIO
“I’m honored to be in the company of these other guys,” says Marcus Ryle,
though that should surprise no one in the know. Products whose design
he contributed to or masterminded include: the Oberheim DSX sequencer
(upon joining Oberheim when he was 19) and OB-8, Xpander, and Matrix-12
synths; the Dynacord Add-One electronic drum brain and ADS sampler; the
Alesis MMT-8 sequencer and HR-16 drum machine, QuadraVerb, QS-series
synths; and the one product that most deserves the overused adjective “game-
changer,” the Alesis ADAT. These days, you can find him at
Line 6 modeling
effects, guitar amps, and the latest revelation: StageScape, a where-has-this-been-all-our-lives system of networkable, “smart” P.A. gear.
About his early days in the synth business, Ryle says, “It was a very
friendly industry, largely because it was small; you knew Phil Dodd and Dave
Smith and Tom Oberheim and Bob Moog and Roger Linn. There’s no point
lamenting that it isn’t so much that way anymore, because the change and
growth that has come to the industry since has been phenomenal.
“The HR-16 and MMT-8 were what really opened our eyes [at Fast Forward
Designs, the consultancy Ryle founded after leaving Oberheim] to how amazing
it could be to bring technology to a price where you really could democratize
music-making. In 1983 dollars, the Oberheim System [DSX sequencer, DMX
drum machine, and OB-8 synth] cost over $10,000. In ’87, the HR-16 was
something like $399, the MMT-8 $299, and they were vastly more
powerful.”
The Fast Forward team went on to democratize the studio with the ADAT.
“I’d worked on home studio gear and I’d done session work in real studios. At
home, you wished you could sound like you were really making a record, but
you always sounded like you were just making a demo.” Introduced at NAMM
in 1991, the first ADAT changed that, offering eight tracks of professional
digital recording on a VHS-like cassette. You could scale up by adding multiple
units at a then shockingly low list price of $3,995 each, as ADATs could
be synced and made to respond to a common control panel. What MIDI had
done for keyboard playing, composition, and arranging, the ADAT did for
multitrack audio recording—launching the project studio revolution.
Having played a huge part in the democratization of recording, Ryle
now
aims to do the same for the P.A. with Line 6’s StageScape. “Our modeling products
have made it possible for any guitarist to get a great sound quickly,” he
explains. “For live sound, our new approach provides the same ability,
whether
you’re experienced with gear or not—for everyone in the band.” --KEN
HUGHES
JON LORD
(1941-2012)
THE MAN WHO MADE KEYBOARDS METAL
We had hoped to speak with Jon Lord, a founding member of Deep Purple,
about his Hall of Fame induction. Sadly, he passed away at age 71 on Monday, July 16, before we got the opportunity.
A multi-faceted musician who folded jazz, blues, and orchestral sonorities
into his rock organ playing, Lord reflected on Deep Purple, in our
March 1983 cover story, as “the first hard rock band to use keyboards
in another way than just as a cosmetic background effect … when
Ritchie [Blackmore, guitarist] and I were trading licks and swapping
solos and doing things like that that were taken from jazz but were
unusual in rock.”
Lord also pioneered a brash new sound on the Hammond organ—one that relied on heavily overdriven amps instead of the usual Leslie
speaker. Both his tone and his playing demonstrated that keyboardists
could rock with even the raunchiest of guitarists. “At the very beginning,
it was difficult not to play a Hammond like Jimmy Smith or Jimmy McGriff
or all those ’60s organ stars,” he continued. “But if you’ve got any
kind of searching mind, copying somebody else gradually becomes very
unsatisfactory.”
In the documentary Classic Albums: Deep Purple—The Making of Machine Head, he elaborated: “I could hear another sound in my head. So I
discussed with a technician that I was working with at the time the possibility of tapping straight into the Hammond, and putting it through a
straight speaker. That seemed like a feasible idea—until I realized that I
uncaged the beast!”
Lord’s organ sound graced countless Deep Purple tracks, including
“Smoke on the Water” and what is perhaps the heavy metal organ anthem,
“Hush.” His solos seemed to embody the very essence of improvisation:
spontaneity. Lord was equally acclaimed for his exploratory solo endeavors,
like the recently re-released and re-recorded version of his 1969 large-scale
composition “Concerto for Group and Orchestra.”
“The task I had given myself,” Lord said in the documentary, “was to
play with some sensitivity and feeling, with that sound.” Mission accomplished,
and much more. --JON REGEN
DON BUCHLA
THE MAVERICK
TECHNO-MAGE
Point-and-click synthesis has become so common,
it’s hard to imagine the challenges that a young
musician and inventor named Don Buchla faced
when building his first electronic instruments for
the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1962. This
year marks the 50th anniversary of Buchla’s technological debut—and he’s still
going strong.
By the beginning of the ’70s, companies like
Moog and ARP had spread the synth gospel far and
wide. Buchla and Associates (which preceded ARP
by more than five years) has always been a smaller,
specialty builder. Buchla’s early modular analog synthesizers, the Series 100
and 200, were used by experimental musicians such as Morton Subotnick, and
were found in many university music labs. More than
a few of today’s top keyboardists, composers, and
producers cut their teeth on a Buchla instrument.
As synth design trended towards familiar slabs
of keys vying for a home atop your Rhodes, Buchla
continued to build instruments that offered tonal
and compositional possibilities beyond the limits of
the 12-note keyboard. His fascination with gestural
sensing and alternative controllers led him to build
such visionary instruments as Lightning, which
sensed the player’s hand positions using infrared
light sources; Thunder, a two-handed multi-touch
sensor that had programmable X/Y touch plates
and transmitted MIDI; and the Marimba Lumina,
a large electronic marimba played with four special
mallets that had radio transmitters in their heads.
His 500 Series, starting in 1971, was one of the
very first digitally controlled analog synths, a concept that became universal
by the mid-’80s. In 1982
the 400 Series was one of the first digital instruments to feature a built-in
sequencer with a piano-
roll display. More recently, he has returned to microprocessor control of analog sound with the 200e.
Buchla and Associates recently became Buchla
Electronic Musical Instruments, due to acquisition by a group of industry
veterans that includes
former Keyboard tech editor Michael Marans.
Don tells us this will free up his time to design
new instruments. Whatever he has in mind, we
can’t wait to play it! --JIM AIKIN
SUZANNE CIANI
ADVENT OF THE MODERN
SOUND DESIGNER
Even if you got through the ’70s and part of the
’80s without ever buying a record or going to a
concert,
Suzanne Ciani made sure you heard the
sound of the synthesizer in your living room.
How? She was one of the first and most prolific
electronic composers to use and promote the
synth as a sonic wellspring for TV ads, jingles,
and soundtracks. Her success spread the idea of
the
sound designer: Here was a new career path for musicians willing to learn their way around a synth.
Her most famous spot was the “pop and pour”
sound for Coca-Cola’s classic commercial, but
her work was everywhere, encompassing tags for
Atari, American Express, car manufacturers, TV
networks, you name it. Other highlights included
music for Bally’s Xenon pinball game and sound
effects for Meco’s disco version of the Star Wars
theme. When Lily Tomlin hired her to do the
soundtrack for The Incredible Shrinking Woman,
Ciani became the first woman to score a Hollywood feature film.
As Wendy Carlos was to the Moog, so was Ciani
to the Buchla synthesizer, which she discovered
in graduate school at the University of California
at Berkeley. “When I first went to the Buchla,
I thought I’d never go back to the piano,” she
told us in a recent conversation. “Synths may be
technical, but for me, they actually debunked the
‘pretentious world of difficulty’ associated with
studying music—they made it more accessible.”
Though recent years have seen her return to piano
performance, she recently acquired a new Buchla
200e. “I’ll let you know when I make some sounds
with it I want you to hear,” she laughs, “as it’s such
a deep instrument.” In the meantime, check out
Lixiviation, a newly released anthology of her most
seminal compositions and commercial work, on
the Finders Keepers label. --STEPHEN FORTNER
DAVE SMITH
MIDI MAVEN,
POLYPHONY PIONEER
While the synthesizer industry is massive—and
nearly 50 years old—few inventors are truly entitled to be called legends. Bob
Moog is one, as are
Tom Oberheim, Roger Linn, Alan R. Pearlman,
and Don Buchla.
Dave Smith, though, stands out
as a legend whose mission today has total continuity with his mission at the
beginnings of the
synth industry: To make synths fun and affordable to gigging musicians.
He developed the first fully integrated polyphonic synth with patch memory
(the Prophet-5),
vector synthesis (the Prophet-VS), wave sequencing (the Korg Wavestation) and
computer-based
software synthesis (Seer Systems Reality). His
current instruments deliver the same analog
goodness and bang-for-buck that motivated his
vintage ones: The Prophet ’08 could be called the
new Prophet-5, the Mopho Keyboard the new
Pro-One, the Poly Evolver . . . is like a Prophet-5
and a PPG got fused by a Star Trek transporter
malfunction and a galactic dance party ensued.
Modules like the Mopho and Tetra have spearheaded the resurgence of inexpensive, control
voltage-capable desktop synths—and have gained
huge followings in both the analog enthusiast
and electronic dance music cultures.
About his return to hardware, which began
with the Evolver module, Dave says, “The Reality soft synth did a lot, but I
realized I was never
playing with it. I had to ask myself why. I realized how silly it is to have a
computer screen—QWERTY and mouse on one side, MIDI keyboard
on the other—and somehow try to have fun.
At the same time, I was helping Roger Linn on
his AdrenaLinn, and I realized how much I liked
hardware. It’s fun. It has knobs and switches. Unlike soft synths, which always have to be ported
to new platforms and operating systems, it’ll still
work in ten years.”
Though he’s not given to boasting, Dave Smith
was also the primary contributor to the invention
of MIDI itself. In fact, he coined the acronym.
Full stop. --FRANCIS PRÈVE
FRED HERSCH
INDESTRUCTIBLE IMPROVISER
Five-time Grammy-nominated
Fred Hersch is absolutely one of the most daring pianists on the
planet. Hersch paid his dues accompanying legendary Jazz musicians like Stan Getz, Joe Henderson,
and countless others. He can also be credited with helping usher in the countermelody-laden sound so
many younger pianists champion these days. He had a tenure writing
Keyboard’s “Solo Piano” column,
and former students of his include Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, and Jason Moran, who said, “Fred at
the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court. He’s perfection.”
His personal story is no less compelling. Hersch has battled HIV for more than a quarter-century,
and recovered from an unrelated condition that left him in a two-month coma in 2008. In his typi-
cal style, he channeled the experience into art, creating the multimedia piece “My Coma Dreams” in
2011. Look for an extended interview with Fred Hersch in an upcoming issue. --JON REGEN