David Sancious always had records playing in his home growing up and his dad would take him to jazz clubs when he was just a child to sit by the stage so he could see the piano player. As...
Rich Schermerhorn is a proud volunteer at NAMM’s Museum of Making Music, located in Carlsbad, California. The museum has several positions for volunteers and Rich seems to do most of them...
Drew Schlesinger started playing organ after seeing The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show. While in college, Drew purchased his first Moog synthesizer and attended the Boston School of Electr...
Stephen Schmidt is a lover of music. His background in engineering, experiences with technology, and customer service lead him to his position as Vice President of Casio’s Electronic Musi...
Peter Schwartz is a pianist, composer, and synthesist who has worked for KORG on such projects as the M1, Wavestation, Prophecy and OASYS. After a wonderful experience with his classical ...
This audio only interview was conducted for a radio program by Dan Del Fiorentino and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Raymond Scott was a noted bandleader and songwriter during ...
Paul Shaffer served as the band leader and musical director for David Letterman's late-night television program from 1982 until David retired in 2015. Along the way, hundreds of noted mu...
Arthur Sloatman was working at Valley Sound in Los Angeles when he was called to the Record Plant to repair a synthesizer that required attention during a session with Frank Zappa. Later ...
Dallas Smith began playing the clarinet at the age of eleven. By the time he was in high school he was in an all-star group and later focused on classical music throughout college. His l...
Dave Smith was the founder of Sequential Circuits and inventor of the polyphonic synthesizer, the Prophet 5. Dave was also the designer and original pioneer of MIDI (musical instrument di...
Laurie Spiegel joined Bell Labs in 1973 wanting to explore what digital computers could offer for musical composition beyond what she'd been able to do with traditional acoustic, written ...
Philip Springer utilized his classical piano training to pen hit songs during a long and celebrated career making music. As a result his tunes often incorporated elements of sophisticatio...
Jason Stanfield has always enjoyed finding new and funny sounds, which means he really enjoyed the synthesizer developments of the 1990s! He worked for Mississippi Music in Hattiesburg, M...
Stefan Stenzel has been a passionate music maker since he was a child. When he had the chance to combine his love of music with his technical skills, to begin working for Waldorf Electro...
Tom Steuckert is a veteran of the music industry having served as store manager at Union Grove Music in Santa Cruz, a road rep and sales manager. His career began when he helped assemble...
Morton Subotnick composed one of the earliest and most important works of electronic music. When his album “Silver Apples of the Moon” was released in the late 1960s, it represented an en...
Yuji Tanaka is a Senior Executive Officer for Roland Corporation who has enjoyed a successful career in the music products industry. Yuji provided detail about how and why he came to work...
Larry The O has been at the forefront of electronic music and audio technology for decades, shaping the landscape of sound innovation. From studying with Joel Chadabe on the iconic Moog m...
Wayne Thompson has always felt lucky that he had a musical mentor in high school and attributes that leadership and inspiration for his long career in the music industry. Dee Wiggins was ...
Isao Tomita was the world-renowned composer of electronic music who famously used the Moog synthesizers to create award winning music that influenced a generation of music makers! Among ...
Csaba Toth was working in the hotel management business when, by pure chance, he had the opportunity to work in the music products industry. As a keyboard player in a local band, Csaba wa...
This audio only interview was conducted by Bruce Duffie and donated to the NAMM Oral History program: Vladimir Ussachevsky was a classically trained composer who worked in the field of el...
Mark Vail has preserved some of the music products industry’s greatest history as author and researcher of a series of publications. In 1993, BackBeat Books published Mark’s landmark book...
David Van Koevering worked alongside Bob Moog in the early days of marketing the Minimoog synthesizer. The instrument was the first mass produced synthesizer that produce unique tones, us...
CJ Vanston was thrilled to have the opportunity to produce for Toto, one of his all-time favorite bands. The project was a symbolic full circle experience having been a studio musician, ...
Tommie Vaughn was just seven years old when his father purchased a piano. He played in church since age 11 and was inspired and encouraged by the church organist who also took time to sho...
Giuseppe Vecchietti, known throughout his career as Beppe, primarily worked for three companies over his long career. All three were located in the same Italian Marche region by the Adria...
Marc-Pierre Verge came to work on computer generated musical instruments by first studying acoustics. He and his colleagues at Applied Acoustics Systems used physical modeling to recreate...
Brian Vincik was in the right place at the right time. As a synthesizer enthusiast and engineer, Brian graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1979 and moved to the San Francisco Bay A...
Peter Vogel and his schoolmate, Kim Ryrie, created the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI) in 1975. The innovative computer based synthesizer helped revolutionize the music indust...
Rick Wakeman was a powerful force in the development of progressive rock thanks in large part to his keyboard musicianship, songwriting and his deep passion for electronic musical instrum...
Cosmo Watts is a multi-talented musician and songwriter who played an important role in the music products industry as a sound designer, synthesizer programmer and music teacher. Growing ...
