BOB MOOG'S INTERVIEW WITH GERSHON KINGSLEY
From Keyboard Magazine - Japan
transcribed by Michelle Koussa
edited by Bob Moog

Gershon Kingsley figures prominently in the history of popular synthesizer
music. Even before he got his first Moog synthesizer, Kingsley produced two
popular electronic music albums in collaboration with Jean-Jacques Perrey.
During the late 1960's and early '70's he produced several LP albums featuring the Moog. Kingsley organized, directed, and wrote the music for the First Moog Quartet, and produced television commercials and film scores using synthesizers and other electronic instruments.

My first memories of Gershon are of a musician who, with Jean-Jacques, was
working in a simple loft in the musical instrument section of midtown Manhattan. The room was cluttered with tape recorders, tape loops, and electronic keyboard instruments. The fragments of music which the two men
were crafting in that room were destined for their first album, "The In Sound from Way Out". Shortly after that Gershon came up to Trumansburg, New York,the small town where we were building Moog synthesizers. Gershon and Ispent some time together. He remembers that I spent time showing him how to use our modular analog synthesizers. He also remembers that my explanations were difficult for him to grasp. After all, he was a musician and I was an engineer. Nonetheless, Gershon did become a master of the Moog, and his creativity and musical intelligence enabled him to become one of the best
known synthesizer musicians of that time.

As the '70's progressed and synthesizers became commonplace, Gershon and I lost close track of each other. Every now and then we would meet at a musical event or a trade show, but only for a short time. The interview that follows was the first time in a long time that we had a chance to talk without other people interrupting us. I had a great time hearing some of Gershon's stories about 'the good old days', and finding out what he has
done in recent years. At the age of 75, Gershon Kingsley, is just as lively and creative,- and just a little bit crazy,- as I remember him from three
decades ago.

Moog: Can I begin at the beginning?

Kingsley: Yeah.

Moog: How did you become a musician?

Kingsley: How did I become a musician????

Moog: Yeah. We're talking the beginning now.

Kingsley: The beginning? In the beginning there was the darkness. That's the beginning! So how did I become a musician? I am sort of a refugee from Germany. As a kid, in 1938, I emigrated from Germany to Palestine. It wasn't
Israel yet, it was Palestine. I was there from 1938-1946. I was a young kid who lived in a kibbutz. (Bob's note: A kibbutz is a cooperative
agricultural village.) I always loved music and I was always improvising, but I really never studied music until I came actually to America at the ageof 24. Then I wanted to go to Julliard but they wouldn't accept me because I didn't have a high school diploma. I couldn't go, they wouldn't permit me. And so I went to California and I did everything. I went to the city college, the state college and I went to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music which later became Cal Arts (Bob's note: That's California Institute of the Arts). And then I did everything together. I did jobs and, you know,
everything together. And so this is how I became a musician, actually starting my career a little bit later. Then I came back to New York. I went to Julliard but not as a regular student, you know I had to make a living, and also to Columbia University where I studied composition.

And then in, when was it, in 1968 I met a very strange man who invited me to a little place in upstate New York where it was very cold in the cellar, and he introduced me to a very strange device. (Note from Bob Moog: Gershon is talking about me here.) You don't even know the story. I came up there (to
Trumansburg) with Sheila (Gershon's wife at that time). After you showed us your synthesizer, we were walking around wondering, what I was going to do.
I said, "I don't know what to do,- it's so much money." But a week after I got my synthesizer, I made a commercial with it, and that just about paid for the whole thing.

Moog: Good, Good! That makes me feel better.

Kingsley: That (Bob's comment: He's talking about what he paid for his first Moog Synthesizer) was my last money.

Moog: But didn't you meet Jean-Jacques before that?

Kingsley: Yes. Yes. That's true. Because we had at the time we got the Moog, what's it called, what was the little device.

Moog: The Ondioline.

Kingsley: The Ondioline. That's right. Part of our success was with the Ondioline.

Moog: What was the first record that the two of you did together?

Kingsley: That was "In Sound From Way Out", which is now part of that whole collection which is now released by Relic. And one of the numbers, the "Baroque Hoedown", became the theme of the Electronic Parade for Disney.

Moog: Who released it, Gershon?

Kingsley: It originally was Vanguard, but they never did a thing. And then Disney heard one of the tracks and used it for the Electronic Parade. Cause when I visited in 19--, it was back already, with my daughter , who is now
37, and I don't know how old she was then, maybe 16. So it was twenty years ago, or more. I went to Disney with her to Disneyland on the Coast. I finally looked at her and I said "My Gosh, I know that melody, it was my
tune played all over. And they made this very complicated way of all these floats using my theme, there's a theme for every float. It's terrific. It's like writing a work with 85 tracks,- kind of magic.

Moog: Gershon, how did it happen that Disney used your Baroque Hoedown and you didn't even know about it?

Kingsley: I tell you one thing, they talk about morality and crooks, you have the least morality in the publishing business. It goes back to the old times when Schubert wrote his "Leise flehen mein Lieder" (Bob's note: It's a
German name.) for twenty-five marks. This is how it's always been, that there were a lot of unknown feuds between publishers and composers, you know, I could go on forever. This probably always will be. But no, I made
a mistake at the time , I didn't keep the publishing you see, and the same thing with my other big tune, Popcorn. But look, it has been a hit all over the world and it led to some other opportunities and doing some other music.
In fact I'm getting now more interest in serious music, too. In my last few commissions I've had to write more serious music.

Moog: So you made In Sound From Way Out with Jean-Jacques. You made other stuff with him, didn't you?

Kingsley: Just one more album, yes.

Moog: Is that Kaleidoscopic Variations?

Kingsley: Yes. It's now released as sort of a two albums, Verve Records. But for the first time I got a check, they always used to be $55, but this time $1800. For this recording. It's weird. But the really big thing now is Polygram,- publishing of the work , its' incredible. And there's a whole list from Japan, there must be many versions in Japan. But they ask you to do something, they ask you "What happened to Gershon Kingsley, he
still alive probably, right?" Like when they asked about Victor Borge he would say, "I'm still dead". (Bob Moog's note: Victor Borge was a famous comedian who appeared on American television even when he was very old.)

Moog: Well you know, shortly before he died, Otto Luening, he was in his 90's, he gave a talk and he started off this way "People come to hear me talk these days for two reasons. The first reason is to see if I'm still alive and the second reason is to see how much I've forgotten."

Kingsley: Well, you're a scientist. You know that our brains are shrinking, always shrinking. And our soft things are getting harder and our hard things are getting softer.

Moog: Right. Then there was the Gershwin thing you did.

Kingsley: Gershwin, yes. "Gershwin, Alive and Well and Underground".

Moog: Leonid Hambro played the piano on that. (Note from Bob: Leonid Hambro was a well known classical pianist.) That was fantastic.

Kingsley: You know what happened with that? At the time I didn't want to do it, but then of course came Switched On Bach and then so everybody wanted to emulate it, to copy it. So they came to me and asked me if I wanted to do it and I said "You're crazy. This is not the kind of thing you can do with,-really,- you can do this on music horizontally, but with chord
structures it's impossible." And the more I said no, they paid me more. So I finally got two 16 track machines coupled together. Can you imagine that? And we recorded here at 44th street, very famous studio, forget the name of it.

So what I did, I took the Ferde Grofe orchestration for Rhapsody in Blue, went all the way from the flute and piccolo down, and really simulated the sounds on the Moog. (Bob's note: Ferde Grofe was an American composer.) And we got it together and then came the moment, after the piano was on there, the moment of truth, to hear the mix. Guess what happened? It sounded like
a big fucking Wurlitzer organ. And I learned a very hard lesson, about harmonics, the difference between harmonics you hear in a live piano and in the electronics. It's completely different. Very little overtones, right?
Practically none.

Moog: So what did you do?

Kingsley: So what I did, I threw out the whole orchestration, and I just did the piano version of the Rhapsody in Blue and I improvised my own arrangement.

Moog: Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

Kingsley: Yes. And it became nice. I mean it's different. I'm sure at the time people weren't interested in it because,, of course they're purists, they say, What they hell is he doing? But on the second side was some tunes from Porgy and Bess and I myself sang Porgy.

But these were unusual times. Also you know I got the commission at the time from the
Kennedy Center to do something for the opening was by Julius Rudell was in charge of it, so I went up to Woodstock where we had the house. Remember we had a house in Woodstock for a while? And I went to one of the galleries and there was a bronze cactus by some artist, and when I touched it, it produced the most incredible sounds. So what did I do? I borrowed the cactus, took it home and did it with, oh, I forgot the name of it, you remember the thing where you change the , what's the guy's name Bode, that's right. I went and recorded faster. It was the frequency shifter and also the other thing too, one more, ring modulator. So I did the whole thing with the ring modulator and I sort of make it faster, then I make it slower, then slower. What I did then was called The Bronze Cactus, and we did kind
of a crazy thing. At the Kennedy Center we had four mikes. At the time they had quad sound. We put four mikes on the cactus, of course this was prerecorded, like this was the sound of the cactus, and we put four big
monitors around the hall. And so it was the premiere of The Bronze Cactus with the Bode Ring Modulator.

Moog: You know what I remember, you did a Shabbat for Today. (Bob's note: 'Shabbat' is Hebrew for Sabbath, or day of rest. This piece of music is for a Jewish Sabbath service.) What came of that?

Kingsley: Oh, it's one of the most performed works today. About four months ago, the original rabbi who commissioned it was retiring so he invited me to come back to California. They had an orchestra and everything, and we did it again and we did it with three synthesizers and two percussionists and I used the synthesizers as like a choir, like if there was an orchestra, you'd have strings, woodwinds and brass, and percussion.
Quite interesting. I remember at the beginning they used the Moogs too, in the first recording. Do you have this too?

Moog: Yeah. Sure.

Kingsley: But you know it's very interesting . Certain composers who were born then or even later,-- I get calls from young students. Unbelievable.
There's a young guy name Sam Mason who is a video artist, who just wants to sit with me and watch me doing things. I'm not such a great scientist or synthesist like many other people are. But they like my music. I don't know why. Maybe because it's so different.

By the way, there was a big picture in Music in America on the Catalog of Serious Music, of what's the name of this guy who was teaching at Cal Arts, your friend, one of the great electronic composers. Subotnik. But he never
used the Moog, he used the Buchla. What is he doing now, working with computers?

Moog: Subotnik? I don't know.

Kingsley: Are you staying in touch with some of the crazy composers of our times?

Moog: Some of them, yeah.

Kingsley: I used to think Emerson, Keith or something.

Moog: Gosh, I was on stage with him, just a couple weekends ago.

Kingsley: I remember I wanted to go up on stage at his first concert in New York, and you invited me. Yes I couldn't talk to anybody for about two weeks, my eardrums were screaming.

Moog: You were saying "this is the end of the world"

Kingsley: What is he doing now?

Moog: This time? It was at NAMM. We were there because we had a exhibit. Keith performed with his own group. His concert was sponsored by some of the big manufacturers. He asked me to come up with him, and I played theremin with him.

Kingsley: I know you're in the business of making theremins now. What the hell is this? You had a little one on the original Moog Synthesizer, this strip. "Wheeeoooo" (makes a sound like a pitch glide). I remember this. Is
this a real theremin where you use your hand for the waves and everything?

Moog: Yeah. We make real theremins now.

Kingsley: How much do they cost? Love to have one. Moog: So you made two records with Jean-Jacques, and have you ever counted
how many records you've made on your own?

Kingsley: I'd say about twenty. What I'm doing now, I'm working on my own stuff. A friend of mine started a web site , but you couldn't get it because it's only for Mac users. (Bob's note: I'm a PC user) He's a big
snob, he only want Mac users to hear my music. It's Music for Mac only.
They're releasing about eight albums of mine. It's not completely finished yet. It'll be a few more months. Also there will be a CD-ROM.

Moog: So, what kind of work are you doing now on the Mac?

Kingsley: I work with Performer, also with Overture. You know Overture?

Moog: I've heard of it. I haven't worked with it myself.

Kingsley: It almost 90% of Finale. Finale is complicated. But Overture in publishing is working,- for me it's fantastic. First of all when I play into the Overture it immediately prints it out, you know. Which is fabulous
for me because I love to improvise anyway. Things have really changed.
There, you know, when I think about the First Moog Quartet, that you were building for us at the time in four little cases where we had two little buttons where we can catch the sound.

Moog: Sure I remember that, yeah.

Kingsley: (Laughs) Oh my God, I spent all that money, and remember we went to Carnegie Hall (Bob's note: Carnegie Hall is a very prestigious concert hall in New York.), to mixed reviews. Some people hated us, some
people loved us, but we were pioneers. People cannot take it away from us.
But usually, you know, interestingly, pioneers usually never make it very big. It's always the people afterwards. It goes back to the biblical times when Moses could not enter the Land of his dreams, he couldn't, he had to stay out. God didn't want him to go there.

Moog: (Laughs)

Kingsley: It was always like that. There are a lot of pioneers you read in the history of science, who became not as well known as the people who came afterward. It's different for inventors, of course, you were crazy anyway,
you never patented your stuff.

Moog: I got a few patents, but I didn't patent everything.

Kingsley: Yeah, but that other thing, which everybody uses, in all the synthesizers, you never patented, you would have been a multi-, multi-, millionaire.

Moog: Back to your music. What kind of music are you writing now?

Kingsley: I've been writing more serious music. I'm doing something right now for an extremely well-known clarinetist named Giora Feidman. It's a piece for bass clarinet. I just finished a work which was based on
Holocaust poems, which is going to be done in Washington in a few months.
It was done here at Lincoln Center, it's called Voices from the Shadows. It's very interesting. I've been living off and on in Germany for the last 15 years, as you may know. We had a gorgeous apartment in Munich. Have you
been to Munich? Anyway, we had a beautiful place, then I couldn't stand it anymore, I don't know why. I always have an instinct about things that are happening. I see the whole world disintegrating. Poverty. Mr. Clinton lies, everybody else lies. The whole world is doing it. Really. We haven't had a war in 45 years. Maybe that's the reason for it, we need a
war. You don't watch TV do you? I remember you don't watch TV. But yesterday at the Town Hall Meeting with Albright. (Bob's note: That's Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State of our country.) Unbelievable, you can't believe it, how the people were screaming. A small minority, how they were screaming,

Meanwhile you and I. I'm doing my music, you're doing your theremin. What are you doing besides theremin?

Moog: We're getting ready to introduce a new Minimoog.

Kingsley: Really? What they always missed of course in frequency modulation is when you want to get "waaaa" (filter sweep sound).. This is what I loved. I always loved it in the original Moog.

Moog: What do you think of the comeback of analog synthesizers? All the 60s records.

Kingsley: First of all, there are a lot of people who want to go back to LP's. They love the noise of the LP's.

Moog: But that's something different.

Kingsley: I love analog. You know, I always explained, didn't I learn from you the difference from analog and digital? You always compared that painter Seurat, who painted with fine dots. You go very close to it and you
see blup, blup, blup bloo. It's digital. But if you go further away and see the whole thing, it's analog. I explain it always in my lectures. I
lectured for quite some time for IBM. Can you imagine I lectured to IBM about creativity? I tell you it's wonderful. I had a great time going all over the world. Hong Kong. Australia.

I've used the Fairlight to demonstrate. Then of course, after the Fairlight there was the Synclavier. I did two albums with the Synclavier, I did also an album with the Fairlight. Those were unusual times.

Moog: So, what do you think that all of that sixties and seventies sound is coming back?

Kingsley: I cannot think about it because it just floored me when I heard about it because I never realized it would happen. Because it's probably like with anything, like with high fashion, probably a year, another two years, then it's finished and they're starting something else. Maybe they are going back to the 40s, or they're going into,- - you know what bothers so many people today, especially in contemporary music, is the lack of melodious content. I went to a concert of the composers Ned Rorem and Jacob Druckman, he died about a year ago. The music was "hah hoo hee hoo hah hah" (Bob's note: pitches jumping around all over the place.) It reminded me, up at Decca records years ago, they had a huge painting of an American Indian praying to the sun, and the caption was "Oh God, give me a melody.". I won't forget this. This is very tough today. Maybe this is why we're going back to the 60s again. Because today there's sampling and technopop. I heard a new version of Popcorn with sampling and technopop sounds.

But I tell you one thing that I'm very interested in, I took an MRI. (Bob's note: MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It's a big diagnostic machine in a hospital.) Have you ever had to take an MRI? I had something
with my shoulder, so I went. They give you some ear plugs. You know why?
Because when you're lying there it's so narrow like a grave and it goes like this (low sounds): "eheheh - - eheheh - - barr - - barr" then it goes (high sounds) "doo-ka-doo-ka-doo-ka-doo-ka" and it sounds like the technopop of today. After I was out, I said to them, "Listen, can I get a tape of what you do in there? I'd love to do a song with it" I'll have to get in touch
with General Electric. But it's fascinating. This is what they're doing today.. They did a version of Popcorn also like this with this tempo thing.
These things come and go. That's why people are going back to analog again and also using these old recordings again. But it's old fashioned. It comes again and goes again. It changes very quickly. Did you ever think 15
years ago that you would build a theremin now?

Moog: No.

Kingsley: Sure not.

Moog: It's funny. Around 1990, we began to get some inquiries for the first time. After 25 years. And it's increased steadily since then.

Kingsley: You have a little factory there?

Moog: Yeah, there are six of us.

Kingsley, And you all live in the mountains., That's wonderful.

Moog: Yeah

Kingsley: You know, when I was in England about 1984, I was conducting for Visa International a big winter happening in Kyoto and I had a 45 piece orchestra of Japanese piano students from the Gadai Academy of Tokyo and I had to talk about music and the theme was change and I wanted to see also
again of course change with the new technology used by the banking system,
also the way composers performed from other composers. Most of them could
have never been there unless Bach came before them, you know, Beethoven, etcetera (Bob's note: etcetera means "and so forth"). But the interesting thing is I was invited by Yamaha, whose factory gave me the first DX7. But only with Japanese manual.

Moog: (Laughs) Oh my gosh.

Kingsley: I had to figure out everything myself. It was pretty hard. I can still remember Bob Moog when you used to tell me "Oh, this would take a long time before we were going to have a polyphonic synthesizer, I remember that."

Moog: Well, it did take a long time.

Kingsley: Oh, it didn't take such a long time.

Moog: When I told you that it was the 60s, and it took till the end of the 70s. That's ten years.

Kingsley: Yes, it's amazing. Then when Yamaha came out, you had to use three hands to get all the notes, you could play 16 notes.

Moog: Yeah. Incredible wealth.

Kingsley: Oh, the technology has not changed, but always it goes around, people are going back to older things. People will get sick of electronic music sometime soon. On the other hand too, I sometimes listen to some of these new incredible sampling sounds because it's so close to the real thing. I was writing a work for bass clarinet and chamber symphony and I'm using the sound of the bass clarinet just to hear a little bit what it
sounds like, and it's incredible, the sound of the bass clarinet. You can be fooled sometimes.

Moog: Well, hey, those samples are just recordings of the real thing. So why shouldn't they sound real.

Kingsley: Yeah. But there's a difference. We all know this.