The Radiophonic Workshop was a studio at the BBC that was created in the late 1950s to produce sound effects and experimental music for various radio and television programs. Their task was to find the right sounds to accompany the new wave of programming coming out on the BBC, especially science fiction shows.

One important early member of the Radiophonic Workshop was Delia Derbyshire, who joined the group in 1962. She was a mathematician and composer who was actually turned down a job at Decca Records before joining the workshop; Decca did not employ women in their recording studios at the time. To listen to a good range of her work, download or try to find a copy of‘Music From The BBC Radiophonic Workshop’, which was released on Rephlex Records in 2003.

Her most famous work for the BBC was the Doctor Who theme song. Originally composed by Ron Grainer, the song was truly realized through the hands and ears of Delia (sadly, she never received any credit for the song during her lifetime). Without synthesizers or drum machines available, she experimented with musique concrète, or the sampling of sounds from everyday objects (and not so much everyday objects such as oscillators), and then tweaking them through pitch bending and various other audio manipulation techniques. At the time there were also no sequencers available, so she would have to record a single note and then play that note back on magnetic tape loops to create a beat. Multiple tape loops were then manually synced and layered to create the composition.

It’s hard to think of all this as too impressive, but at the time everything was completely new and some real tinkering, experimentation, and ingenuity went into the work coming from the Radiophonic Workshop. Not much is known to the general public about the workshop, but the work done there in the 50s, 60s, and 70s played a prominent role in the furthering of electronic music. After the cut there is the seven part BBC documentary ‘The Alchemists of Sound’, which showcases a complete history of the workshop and those whom were involved. For the parts about Delia, check out the end of part 4 and beginning of part 5.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7