#“Slightly obsessing about the Doctor Who theme music”
I watched a superb Culture Show documentary on Doctor Who last week. Several people really stood out for me including Delia Derbyshire, the absolute genius who, at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1963,turned Ron Grainer’s simple tune into the iconic music that is burned into my brain since I first heard it around 1972, aged 4.
I’ve just been wondering this week how she did it. Has anyone tried to re-create it using the technology available to her back then? I found this clip showing how they did it in 1980 with analogue polyphonic synthesisers and vocoders but that tech is far beyond 1963 and, to be honest, doesn’t sound as good to my ears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIZIu72Clp4
In any case, here’s a bunch of them back to back, starting with Delia’s masterpiece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1AnTi1X2QM
And a BBC Radio 4 Documentary on Delia. Sad that you have to go to YouTube to listen to it!
UPDATE: You really have to listen to that BBC R4 documentary, it’s wonderful. Her co-workers give a good description of how the Doctor Who theme was created too.