Delia Derbyshire Sound and Music for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1962-1973
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Delia Derbyshire Sound and Music For The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1962-1973 Teresa Winter PhD University of York Music June 2015 2 Abstract This thesis explores the electronic music and sound created by Delia Derbyshire in the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop between 1962 and 1973. After her resignation from the BBC in the early 1970s, the scope and breadth of her musical work there became obscured, and so this research is primarily presented as an open-ended enquiry into that work. During the course of my enquiries, I found a much wider variety of music than the popular perception of Derbyshire suggests: it ranged from theme tunes to children’s television programmes to concrete poetry to intricate experimental soundscapes of synthesis. While her most famous work, the theme to the science fiction television programme Doctor Who (1963) has been discussed many times, because of the popularity of the show, most of the pieces here have not previously received detailed attention. Some are not widely available at all and so are practically unknown and unexplored. Despite being the first institutional electronic music studio in Britain, the Workshop’s role in broadcasting, rather than autonomous music, has resulted in it being overlooked in historical accounts of electronic music, and very little research has been undertaken to discover more about the contents of its extensive archived back catalogue. Conversely, largely because of her role in the creation of its most recognised work, the previously mentioned Doctor Who theme tune, Derbyshire is often positioned as a pioneer in the medium for bringing electronic music to a large audience. Both perceptions of the workshop and Derbyshire are problematised here, because while they seem to contrast, they are both posited upon the same underlying method of attributing positive value to autonomous music, rather than viewing them on their own specific terms within broadcast media. While it is shown that Derbyshire certainly aspired towards the role of composing contemporary classical music and had an interest in integrating its aesthetics and ideas into her work, she also had an ambiguous relation to it and was not fully able to explore her interest because of her socio-cultural circumstances. Further, the mass of difficult-to-access archived material precludes particularly firm conclusions about Derbyshire’s role in any history of electronic music in Britain—which is itself still very much under construction— with much further research suggested. Thus, the selection of material here is patched together into three different themes raised by her in interview, within contextual frames of relevant aesthetics and techniques, rather than into a coherent chronological, biographical or historical narrative. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 List of Figures 7 Acknowledgements 8 Author’s Declaration 9 1. Introduction 10 1.1 Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop: a Service Department……………………………………………………………….10 1.2 Approach……………………………………………………………..13 1.3 Delia Derbyshire……………………………………………………..15 1.4 Special Sound: Technology, Exoticism And Human Agency……….20 1.5 Populist Modernism………………………………………………….23 2. Aesthetics And Techniques 28 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………...28 2.2 Radiophonics and Experimental Radio………………………………….29 2.3 Electronic Music and BBC Radiophonics……………………………….33 2.3.1 Musique Concrète and Bricolage……………………………....36 2.3.2 Elektronische Musik…………………………………………....39 2.3.3 Application of Aesthetics and Techniques at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop……………………………………………....41 4 2.3.3.2 Tape Loops…………………………………………...44 2.3.3.3 Speed Alterations…………………………………….45 2.3.3.4 Multiple Recording, Synchronisation, Superimposition, Copying……………………………………………………....48 2.3.3.5 Echo, Feedback, Reversing; Dynamic Alterations, Filtering; Reverb; Modulation………………………………..50 2.3.3.6 Oscillators and White Noise Generators……………..51 2.3.3.7 Synthesisers…………………………………………54 3. Inside The Mind 57 3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………....57 3.2 Doctor Who (1963): Banality and Difference…………………………....58 3.2.1 Verity Lambert: a ‘Way Out and Catchy Sound’……………....59 3.2.2 The Division of Labour Between Composer and Technicians, and Differences of Opinion on the Matter…………………………..........61 3.2.3 Bricolage and Synthesis as Realisation of ‘Normal but Uncanny’……………………………………………………………………..64 3.2.4 Synchronisation: Humanity, Technology and Agency………...65 3.2.5 Reception………………………………………………………68 3.3 Inventions For Radio (1963-5)…………………………………………..70 3.3.1 Barry Bermange………………………………………………..71 3.3.2 The Dreams (1963-4)…………………………………………..74 3.3.2.1 Medium Specificity…………………………………..74 3.3.2.2 ‘Working In Reverse’: The Experimental Approach...74 3.3.2.3 Words: Taxonomy And Narrative…………………....76 3.3.2.4 Music: ‘Working In Reverse’ And Authorship……....81 3.4 Blue Veils And Golden Sands (1968)…………………………………….83 3.4.1 Showcasing Colour: Television Aesthetics…………………….83 5 3.4.2 Music: ‘Disembodied Humanity’……………………………....85 3.4.2.1 Artificial Acoustics And Synthesis…………………..86 3.4.3 Reception And Legacy………………………………………....89 3.5 Drama Collaborations With Angela Rodaway (1964-5)…………………89 3.5.1 Angela Rodaway……………………………………………….89 3.5.2 Gravel And The Flame……………………………………………...91 3.5.3 The Death Of The Jellybaby…………………………………....95 3.5.3.1 A London Childhood And The Death Of The Jellybaby As Autobiography……………………………………………95 3.5.3.2 Experimental Narrative………………………………95 3.5.3.3 Radiophonic Sound And Music: Blurring Between Inner And Outer Reality……………………………………..96 3.5.3.4 Ambiguity Between Audio And Visual Elements…...97 4. The Distant Future And The Distant Past 99 4.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….....99 4.2 Towards Tomorrow (1967)…………………………………………………100 4.2.1 The Theme Tune: Interrupted Ascension……………………..............101 4.2.1.1 Rhythm……………………………………………………...101 4.2.1.2 Melody And Harmony……………………………………...102 4.2.2 Pre-Production: Representing A Critical View Of Progress….............105 4.3 Great Zoos Of The World (1969)……………………………………….............105 4.4 Crash! (1970-1)………………………………………………………………....106 4.5 I Measured The Skies (1970)…………………………………………………...111 4.6 The Anger Of Achilles (1963-4)………………………………………………...112 4.7 Tutankhamun’s Egypt (1971)…………………………………………………...117 6 5. Music To Watch Sculpture By: Art And Poetry 119 5.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….119 5.2 Sound Poetry: ABC In Sound & Laut Und Luise………………............122 5.2.1 Sound Poetry…………………………………………........................122 5.2.2 ABC In Sound (1966)…………………………………............127 5.2.2.1 Bob Cobbing………………………………………..127 5.2.2.2 The BBC Version…………………………...............128 5.2.3 Laut Und Luise (1966)………………………………………………..134 5.2.3.1 Ernst Jandl…………………………………………………..134 5.2.3.2 The BBC Version…………………………………………...136 5.3 Visual Art…………………………………………………………….....140 5.3.1 I Think In Shapes (1968)……………………………………...140 5.3.2 Omnibus: The Performers (1970)…………………………….141 5.4 Sono-Montage (1964)…………………………………………...............143 5.4.1 Rosemary Tonks………………………………………………143 5.4.2 The Bloater, Biographical Parallels with Derbyshire, And Dissatisfaction With British Cultural Life………………………….145 5.4.3 Analysis: Poetry, Music and Sound…………………………..151 5.4.4 Collaboration And Compromise……………………………...155 6. Conclusion 155 7. Appendix 160 8. References 170 7 List of Figures Figure 1: Transcription based on makeup tapes for Blue Veils And Golden Sands…88 Figure 2: Transcription based on makeup tapes for Blue Veils And Golden Sands…89 Figure 3: Transcription based on makeup tapes for Blue Veils And Golden Sands…89 Figure 4: Transcription based on rhythmic motif for Towards Tomorrow theme tune…………………………………………………………………………………103 Figure 5: Transcription based on manuscript notes for Towards Tomorrow theme tune............................................................................................................................104 Figure 6: Transcription based on manuscript notes for Towards Tomorrow………105 Figure 7: Diagram of overlapping layers in ‘In The Country’……………………..140 8 Acknowledgements Thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for their financial support, to Ambrose Field, my supervisor, and to David Butler for taking the time and trouble to let me listen to the archive of recordings in his office at the University of Manchester and for always interesting discussions during visits. Help from people at the British Library Sound Archive and the BBC Written Archives was also invaluable. Thanks to everybody I corresponded with, but especially to Peter Zinovieff and Brian Hodgson for chatting to me in person—I feel privileged to have heard their thoughts and recollections. And to my parents, brothers, my Nan, Azlee, Parveen, Babar, Rowan, Freddy, and Uncle Lol. 9 Author’s Declaration I, Teresa Winter, declare that this thesis is a presentation of original work and I am the sole author. This work has not previously been presented for an award at this, or any other, University. All sources are acknowledged as References. 10 1 Introduction 1.1 The BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Service Department This thesis concerns the work of Delia Derbyshire (1937-2001), who has become central to the retrospective understanding of Britain’s first institutional electronic music studio, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This was used to create music and sounds for radio and television over the course of forty years from 1958. Derbyshire worked there between 1962 and 1973, a period of time that encompasses almost her entire musical career. However, until the relatively recent (2010) publication of