Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop...

Delia at the controls in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Delia Derbyshire was a true pioneer of electronic music. After Australian born composer Ron Grainer had written the music for a new T.V. show called Doctor Who in 1963, it was Delia Derbyshire who, working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop at the time, actually created, or realised the music.



Each and every note was individually created by cutting, splicing, speeding up and slowing down segments of analogue tape containing recordings of a single plucked string, white noise, and the simple harmonic waveforms of test-tone oscillators. The swooping melody and pulsating bass rhythm was created by manually adjusting the pitch of oscillator banks to a carefully-timed pattern. The rhythmic hissing sounds, "bubbles" and "clouds", were created by cutting tape recordings of filtered white noise, (wiki) Some of the loops reportedly stretched the length of corridors at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Although she was championed by Grainer, Delia never received a credit for her work on the enigmatic title music.


Delia at work at the BBC...


In 1964, Delia composed the music for the  BBC radio programme "The Dreams". The programme was narrated and written by Barry Bermange. It consisted of taped interviews of people recounting dreams, spliced together with Delia's music re-creating the feel of the dreamscapes. It is a truly unnerving and haunting piece, which may or may not have influenced the use of voices and electronic sounds on Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". The similarities are yours to decide.

In 1966, Delia set up the musical group Unit Delta Plus along with Brian Hodgson and Peter Zinovieff. They appeared in public only a handful of times, most notably at The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave at which The Beatles' famed "Carnival of Light" had its only public airing.

In 1968 she teamed up with Hodgson again to form the band White Noise, along with David Vorhaus, another early pioneer of Electronic music. The trio released "An Electric Storm" on the Island label before Delia departed to pursue her own solo musical career. Delia was a musician in her own right, (she held degrees in both mathematics and music) who went on to compose and work on over 200 pieces of music for BBC Radio and Television, and for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp).

After working on various other projects, including a film score for a Yoko Ono movie, by 1973 Delia had left the BBC and eventually turned her back on music.

In later years, after striking up an unlikely friendship with Peter Kember, better known as Sonic Boom of the band Spacemen3, Delia started creating and even performing original musical works. She died aged 64 of renal failure complicated by years of heavy drinking and surgery for breast cancer. God bless ya Delia, you were quite a lady.

Once impossible to find, Delia's music is available all over the internet. For an extensive discography, go to http://www.discogs.com/artist/Delia+Derbyshire 
For a taster, try starting with this CD: "BBC Radiophonic Music".

Also of value is this excellent BBC radio documentary "Sculptress of Sound" that looks extensively at Delia Derbyshire's life, work, music and methods. It's in audio only with images off Delia and her colleagues at work over the years.