Pioneers of electronic music #3: BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Pioneers of electronic music #3: BBC Radiophonic Workshop

9 April, 2008 | 2.30PM

• Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
• Written by: culprit1

Founded by the visionary Daphne Oram, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop became one of the most famous institutions in musical history.

Following years of impassioned badgering by studio engineer Oram, the BBC launched the workshop in 1958 with a budget of £2,000 ($4,000).

The burgeoning studio’s primary role was to create incidental music and background soundscapes for the BBC’s radio and television output.

Due to the musique-concrete style of much of what was being produced, Oram was brought into contact with some of the leading lights of the time, notably Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage.

Sounds were manipulated using the primitive tape machines located at the workshop’s premises in Maida Vale, London.

Although sometimes unreliable, the tape machines ensured that sounds could be replayed at different speeds, warped backwards and then painstakingly pieced together.

Workshop staff used these studio techniques, and many other inspiring methods, to create a stunning range of extraordinary compositions.

Popular sound sources included champagne corks, whining doors, stroked lampshades and an extensive library of animal noises.

Other useful instruments available for use included a water cistern, bells, gravel and a colossal selection of bottles.

A theme tune for BBC Radio Sheffield was created by crashing together pieces of cutlery, inspired by the city’s position at the forefront of steel production.

Once up and running, the workshop staff began to produce a startling average of 250 compositions a year including background scores, theme tunes, jingles, memorable comedy sounds and many voices, noises and sounds for science fiction programmes.

The workshop’s most famous composer was arguably Delia Derbyshire.

Born in 1937, Derbyshire graduated in the 1950s with a degree in mathematics and music from Cambridge University.

On being turned away from Decca Records’ recording studio in 1959 for the horrific crime of being a woman (!), she worked for the United Nations in Geneva, eventually joining the BBC as a trainee studio manager in 1960.

Transferred to the Radiophonic Workshop, Derbyshire unleashed her creative talent, composing formidable pieces of music and influencing the other staff with her significant musical ability.

To see Delia Derbyshire at work (beat matching no less), check out this video:

Derbyshire was also responsible for realising the workshop’s most famous piece of music; the 1963 theme tune to the seminal BBC drama series ‘Doctor Who’.

Upon being approached by composer Ron Grainer to develop his initial composition using “swoops”, “wind bubbles” and “sweeps”, Derbyshire set to work in the workshop.

After hearing the finished studio piece for the first time, Grainer was so surprised as to the final result that he apparently remarked: “Did I write that?!”

Derbyshire had certainly made her mark on the original piece, but despite Grainer’s wish that she receive royalties, she was not able to receive any due to BBC policy at the time.

Check out Derbyshire’s ‘Doctor Who’ theme on this video:

During her lifetime, Derbyshire enjoyed exporatory musical encounters with an astounding group of composers, amongst them Paul McCartney, George Martin, Pink Floyd, Brian Jones, Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson.

Derbyshire left the workshop in the early 1970s and sadly died in 2001, but her influence lives on.

She has received props from a range of electronic artists, from Add N to (X) and Aphex Twin to BBC Radio 1’s Rob da Bank and The Chemical Brothers.

A recent article in the UK broadsheet The Guardian labeled her ‘the unsung heroine of British electronic music’.

The workshop itself is also no longer with us - it was shut by the BBC in 1998 as it could no longer cover costs.

However, its influence will live on thanks to a series of CD reissues, two of which were released on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label.

To find out more about the workshop’s extraordinary achievements, follow the links below.

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