Introduction

Although the synthesizer was originally a piece of technology that was reserved for the elite American music producers of the 1960s, the popularization and increased accessibility of the Moog synthesizer facilitated an expansion of digital musicianship and validated electronic means of producing music throughout the 1970s. It provided musicians with a new method of sound making and a wide variety of genres from psychedelic rock, to disco, to hip-hop, as demonstrated by artists such as The Beatles, The Bee Gees, and Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. By providing musicians with a new set of sounds, timbres, musical effects, and the ability to recreate the sounds of familiar instruments, the Moog synthesizer created entirely new channels for musical exploration in the familiar form of a keyboard.