Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer (review)

Braun, Hans-Joachim.

Technology and Culture, Volume 44, Number 3, July 2003, pp. 632-634 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/tech.2003.0102

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petition, part going to new entrants. As the rounds of allocations spread to other cities, the FCC tried to encourage participation by women, minorities, and small businesses. This laudable goal of inclusion inadvertently created a land rush, as people like Nicholas Wilson realized that there was money to be made by getting people to bid on a piece of spectrum. Wilson and many others established application mills, encouraging people to invest a little in the hope of gaining a lot. Many did, winning a small slice and then selling out or joining forces with firms that actually intended to provide service. Out of this chaotic situation grew the cell phone market. Luck and personalities played a role, but so did access to cash and credit and the ability to leverage them. Murray employs the familiar but effective technique at tracking small and large players as they try to manipulate the system, expand their empires, steal a march on their competitors, realize dreams, scam their clients, and just have fun. The emphasis is on individuals and the firms they created, to the neglect of larger economic forces and technological issues. This is not necessarily the first book you should read on the subject, but it is quite possibly the second. Readers looking for a more international approach from the perspective of one firm might find Anywhere, Anytime by Louis Galambos and Eric John Abrahamson very useful. Certainly, Wireless Nation will put people squarely in the middle of this technological change and destroy any illusions about markets being rational.
JONATHAN COOPERSMITH
Dr. Coopersmith, an associate professor at Texas A&M University, still lacks a cell phone, unlike the vast majority of his students.

Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. By Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp. xv+368. $29.95.

In the history of technology and in science and technology studies, sound studies have recently enjoyed some popularity. Hence a study on Robert Moog and the analog synthesizer is particularly welcome. Trevor Pinch, who, as a physics student, built his own synthesizer in the early 1970s, brings some biographical interest to the story. He combines this with his well-known conceptual and analytical expertise as well as his ability to do sound empirical research and to present the outcome in a way that is pleasurable to read. In this very handsomely produced volume, Pinch and coauthor Frank Trocco deal with an electronic instrument combining simple waveforms in order to produce more complex sounds. They base their account to a large extent on interviews with engineers, musicians, and workers in small factories producing synthesizers, as well as salespeople. Among the key themes
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are the innovation process of the analog synthesizer, described in terms of the social construction of technology, and the marketing of the synthesizer, emphasizing the theme of consumer as agent. The authors make use of such analytical concepts from the social sciences and anthropology as boundary shifters and liminal entities, and they make it clear that the synthesizer can be seen as an instrument transgressing various boundariesbetween science and art, between pop music and classical music, and between music and sound. Something similar goes for the human factor involved: engineers like Moog become musicians, musicians like Walter (later Wendy) Carlos become engineers, and other musicians like David van Koevering, who marketed the Minimoog, become salesmen. Robert Moog, with a background in electrical engineering, came from a tradition of mass production and set out to build an instrument that could be used by every musician. On the Pacific Coast, Don Buchla, also working on a synthesizer and also an engineer by training, had a different vision. Regarding himself as an instrument maker and an artist, he showed little interest in business. Pinch and Trocco see Moogs and Buchlas synthesizers as examples of SCOTs interpretative flexibility. Closure took placewhen keyboard use la Moog and contrary to Buchla prevailed because most commercial musicians preferred their synthesizers with keyboards. In 1968, commercial breakthrough came with Walter Carloss bestselling recording of Switched-On Bach using a Moog synthesizer. As Pinch and Trocco point out, selling was also vital. In the case of the Minimoog, van Koeveringmusician, novelty instrument maker, and sales geniuspersuaded reluctant music-store owners to stock these devices. In this he was backed by young keyboardists who were persuaded that Minimoogs would enable them to become virtuoso soloists. Hence, in the development of the Minimoog, users played a key role. Pinch and Trocco tell the story of van Koeverings marketing exploits with humor and this goes also for their account of how David Borden, an avant-garde musician, foolproofed the early Moog synthesizer equipmentan activity which today might be called beta testing. Ikutara Kakehashi, founder of Roland, came up with that name by looking through a U.S. telephone directory. There are only minor quibbles with this engagingly written, thoroughly researched, well-conceptualized, and nicely produced book. As the authors often rely on long quotations gained from interviews with key actors, they could have dwelt a bit longer on the issue of their reliability. It would have also been useful to have introduced theoretical concepts like boundary shifting at the beginning of the book and then taken them up again in the context of their narrative. As it is, they introduce these concepts only in the conclusion. Although they have done a great job in the production of the book, the people at Harvard University Press could be asked why they insisted on having the authors keep their documentation to the utmost minimum. Would it really have increased production costs so much if they
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had been more generous in this respect? Surely it would have increased the value of the book even more. For a scholarly work, sound documentation is no luxury. Still: this is a splendid book in almost every respect. It is to be hoped that the authors will take the chance of continuing their story. They have provided us with a magnificent start on describing the development and early use of the synthesizer and should now, after the analog days are over, examine their digital sequence.
HANS-JOACHIM BRAUN
Dr. Braun is professor of modern social, economic, and technological history at the Universitt der Bundeswehr Hamburg and editor of Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century (2002).

Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion. By Feng-hsiung Hsu. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Pp. xvii+298. $27.95.

This is an unusual book to review for Technology and Culture. Only tangentially a history of technology, it is mostly a memoir of a key participant in the narrative, Feng-hsiung Hsu. Historians of technology can find solace in the authors oft-stated theme, that it is about man as a performer versus man as a toolmaker (p. 264). Yet most of the book seems to concentrate on the clash of strong personalities. Since I work in the same Carnegie Mellon department where he was once a doctoral student, it was too tempting for me to ask about memories of Feng-hsiung Hsu. Most people mentioned in the book remember him as always getting what HE WANTED. This is a backhanded compliment that really means he was most remembered for his nonconformity. (He was called Crazy Bird. This is not too far from the English meaning of his first name, but crazy is hardly a name that parents would give to a child.) In a department that supports each Ph.D. student, a certain amount of gratitude might be expected, but it is not evident in Behind Deep Blue. In opposition to the hardworking Dr. Hsu we have two villains, Hans Berliner of Carnegie Mellon and Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion. It seems as though these men did hardly anything that was right; each is vilified in equal share, although some of Kasparovs demands do seem ludicrous. The book accurately portrays the life of a monomaniac graduate student at a powerful school, the chess chips he and his fellow students created, and the chess world. It recounts the migration of their team, nearly whole, to IBM, and the drive to win the Friedkin Prize for the first chess computer to defeat the world champion. Toward the end of the book Hsu wonders whether his nemesis at Carnegie Mellon, Berlinerthe keeper of the Friedkin Prizechanged the rules so his team could not win. However, Hsu describes the meeting of the
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