Since the invention of the Hammond organ in 1935, hardly an instrument exists that has not been electrified. Piano, flute, violin, trumpet, drums each has its own plugged-in cousin. Most conspicuous is pop-rock's king of instruments, the electric guitar. Ten years ago, from Engineering Physicist Robert Moog, came the Moog synthesizer, which first produced music through electricity alone. A nuclear-age superorgan, it looks like the offspring of a piano and a telephone switchboard.
The public was bewitched with its eerie atomic sounds, first through Composer Walter Carlos' bestselling record Switched-On Bach, later by...