The other day I heard on NPR that Robert Moog had died. He invented the very first analog electronic synthesizers and later also several digital synthesizers and other things for musicians. One of his collaborators and musician test pilots (as it were) was Wendy Carlos. Her album Switched-On Bach was the first classical album to go platinum, and won three Grammys. It was performed entirely on Mr. Moog's Modular synthesizer, a thing of dials and wires with which one changed the characteristics of the sounds produced by the keyboard. Mr. Moog's synthesizers began a new musical paradigm, an entirely new landscape of sounds for musicians of all stripes. But perhaps their true potential and beauty (in my opinion) lies in ambient space music, a genre that synthesizers are not only perfectly suited for but made possible. Go listen to Brian Eno's "Apollo Soundtrack and Atmospheres" and say it ain't so.

And so I am playing Ms. Carlos's "Air on a G String" from Switched-On Bach in honor of Mr. Moog. It seems appropriate.