Content area
Full Text
Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer. By Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. xvi, 368 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-674-00889-8.)
The study of musical instruments remains largely partitioned from the broader study of popular music and cultural history. In recent years, a small number of authors of monographs and edited collections have been trying to change that. Analog Days, by Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, is a welcome addition. Pinch and Trocco approach their subject, the Moog synthesizer, from the perspective of the history and sociology of technology and the social construction of technology (SCOT) paradigm, which Pinch played a significant role in formulating. The synthesizer is well suited to such an approach as it marked a dramatic advancement in the use of electronics...