Dose of Delia: birthday edition 2011

Once again we wish you all a Happy Delia Derbyshire‘s birthday!

Your Dose of Delia for today is Moogies Bloogies, Delia Derbyshire with Anthony Newley. Enjoy!

Dose of Delia: Birthday edition

I’m dead keen on limiting resources…You need to have discipline in order to be truly creative. If you’re just given total freedom to do anything you like… You’ve got to impose some discipline on either the form you’re going to use or the sounds you’re going to use.
–Delia Derbyshire

Today’s Dose of Delia is in honor of what would have been the composer’s 72nd birthday. As I’ve said in the past, Delia Derbyshire is best known to sci-fi fans for her electronic realization of Ron Grainer’s theme music for the BBC television series Doctor Who.

Delia Derbyshire 1937-2001

It sounds like synthesizers, but Delia’s recording of Doctor Who was created with tape editing, electronic filters and tape loops. She’d record individual notes from oscillators and other electronic sources, one by one onto tape, cut them up with a razor and stick them back together in order. As someone who’s edited miles of tape, I can tell you: that’s a long and labor-intensive process. Delia assembled Doctor Who over the course of two weeks.

From delia-derbyshire.org:

Within a matter of months [after joining the BBC Radiophonic Workshop] she had created her recording of Ron Grainer’s Doctor Who theme, one of the most famous and instantly recognisable TV themes ever… “Did I really write this?” [Grainer] asked. “Most of it,” replied Derbyshire.

On the score he’d written “sweeps”, “swoops”… beautiful words… “wind cloud”, “wind bubble”… so I got to work and put it together and when Ron heard the results.. oh he was tickled pink!
–Delia Derbyshire

Have a jelly baby and enjoy Delia Derbyshire’s recording of the Doctor Who theme. Happy birthday, Delia!

You Better Beware

Or I Might Take A Tumble

As I’ve said before, Delia Derbyshire is the BBC Radiophonic Workshop musician who recorded Ron Grainer’s theme music for Doctor Who.

Today’s Dose of Delia is “Here Come The Fleas,” a charming track from the 1968 White Noise album. Interestingly, the guitar solo sounds like something from a Brian Eno album from 1973 or ’74…

Delia Derbyshire CDs and DVDs can be found at her website. I ain’t connected to that in any way; I just thought you should know.

Tuesday Miscellany

I’m not a programmer or physics major, so many of the jokes fly past me, but I really do enjoy xkcd.

The comic I’m posting about won’t fit on this page, so I’m afraid I’ll just have to link to it. Sorry. Go ahead and look at it; I’ll stay right here.

This happens to me frequently, and in fact happened just last night. Oddly, though, when I have “back in college” dreams I also construct an entire section of Michigan State’s campus (and a few blocks off campus) that doesn’t actually exist. It’s generally located at the northeast corner of the actual campus. This is doubly odd as, being a radio/TV major I spent most of my time at the Communication Arts building, which is to the south and more or less west-ish.

The imaginary guitar shops just north of the imaginary MSU campus are quite cool, I have to say.

Today’s Dose of Delia:
Delia Derbyshire is best known to sci-fi fans as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop musician who recorded Ron Grainer’s theme music for Doctor Who. She was also a tremendously influential electronic music composer.

Today’s Delia Derbyshire track is “Love Without Sound,” from the 1968 White Noise album An Electric Storm.