And I’m thankful we all have the strength to persevere this season.

And the next, and the next, and the next… 😛

One of her first works, and most widely known, was her 1963 electronic realisation of a score by Ron Grainer for the theme of the Doctor Who series, one of the first television themes to be created and produced entirely with electronics.
When Grainer heard it, he was so amazed by her arrangement of his theme that he asked: “Did I really write this?”, to which Derbyshire replied: “Most of it”.

And in one of the videos, she is highly praised by one of my favorite musicians (Adrian Utley).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAI

I know nobody cares about this, but it’s really great.

It’s SO far ahead of its time, and the way it was put together is mindblowing. It was written by a composer named Ron Grainer, and recorded by the legendary Delia Derbyshire, who was a pioneering electronic musician in the pre-synthesizer era. It’s a cool melody but the real genius work here was done by Delia Derbyshire, who used ingenious recording methods to create the theme’s otherworldly magic.

The sounds in the Doctor Who theme sound very much like sounds you’d expect to hear from modern synthesizers, but Delia Derbyshire created those sounds entirely with tape loops and splicing, in an early primitive version of what we today call “sampling.” There are no musicians and no synthesizers in use on the song, those are all tape edits.

The big swooping synthesizer-sounding lead sound? That’s an oscilloscope, a tone generator. She would record each “note” of the oscilloscope, then edit a performance out of it with razor blade and tape. The swooping portamento notes were achieved by her recording herself turning the dial of the oscilloscope to generate the tone. All of the sounds in the recording were achieved this way. Most of them are found sounds that are treated to sound like musical instruments and not actual musical instruments.

I’m probably not doing a great job of describing it, but it’s astonishing what she was able to do. Many electronic musicians, particularly British ones, have cited this piece of music as a huge influence. It still sounds like it’s from the future, and it must have fried peoples’ minds in 1963. I’ve heard people say they were terrified of it when they heard it for the first time back then.

The actual song is here. Keep in mind this is 1963!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75V4ClJZME4

Super interesting three minute video in which she describes her methods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkIEkLww3lg

I looked at the theme song list. It’s amazing how many shows I’ve never watched.