Creating the Theme | Radiophonic Workshop | Doctor Who 

All hail the Queen of the Doctor Who theme tune.

That completely blows my mind. For years I assumed the theme was composed with synthesizers. This is incredible! Sticky tape and scissors? Amazing!

It's an outrage that the BBC, the PRS, the MU never demanded that COMPOSERS (not sound designers or mere assistants, as they were designated) like Delia and others, never received the credit and the broadcasting royalties for their inestimable work. For shame!!! It took someone like George Martin in those days to stand up and denounce the system, and become independent and properly rewarded.

"Wobbulator"... Sounds like something you'd find in the Tardis!

I appreciate this theme even more now, just by looking at how hard it was to make.

As a kid I always wanted to work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, probably after hearing the Doctor Who theme. I did eventually work for the BBC, but in pictures, not sound!

And that's how you create an iconic theme tune for the world's longest-running science fiction television series. And even though there have been many different arrangements of the theme through Doctor Who's original run and current run, it still touches the public consciousness today. Rest in peace, Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer. And thank you for creating a theme tune that makes us feel like we've been taken out of reality and into a wonderful magical world.

Delia was such a strange but interesting person, not in a bad way but a unique way.

I met Dick Mills at a Dr. Who convention once. I had brought my pre-teen daughter to the autograph line to ask him to sign an old Dr. Who LP. He stopped the line for five minutes to discuss the old show with us, and how much he loved the Chicago aquarium, and other things. He's written several books about the keeping of fish. The line kept building and I offered to step aside to let other people come forward, but he would have none of it. Dick Mills is a classy guy.

Delia seems like such a lovely, gentle person who’s blessed with a special kind of genius.

Fantastic to see Delia Derbyshire interviewed here, and to have her recognised. I've always been a fan of electronic music and the Doctor Who theme is a brilliant example of what was achievable using genuine creativity and resourcefulness that was necessary in the 1960s. The Peter Howell version was also a brilliant follow up. I had the pleasure a few years ago of attending a talk by former members of the Radiophonic Workshop at the Science Museum and I take my hat off to them for their pioneering work. If you have time, then go and see the Oramics exhibit at the Science Museum.

Man it’s crazy hearing her voice, hasn’t changed a bit.

Yes. That is exactly how my pieces come together. Bass, melody, and the right twiddly bits on top.

The opening is so ominous and foreboding but it resolves to a Beethovian uplifting landscape - spacescape! It's a great composition and the electronic tomfoolery is of Divine Origin. Great piece of music when in comes in your ears...

This theme is the incoming call on my cell phone - thank you Delia and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop

Amazing that today's computer technology and the representation of cutting pasting and splicing and sampling is not much different from how they did it back then, but with tape. So hard back then and they were figuring out how to do it! That's just incredible.

All hail Queen Delia Derbyshire. Ron may have written it, but she made it how we know and love it!

Just a little extra trivia, Ron Grainer wanted to credit both himself and Delia. But it was against BBC policy. That’s why Delia barely even gets credit for the song, even today

I always thought Paul McCartney was the first to slice up tape and put it back together to record a song. I am so glad for youtube to give you folk the recognition you so richly deserve. I love it, where two sticky tape joins weren't together that was the wrong note. Who needs computer software.

My favourite bbc radiophonic workshop musical composers.

This haunting music was a creation of GENIUS .....Delia was ONE OF A KIND ....As a musician composing creating my own music right now today listening to her creations & how she realized them is INSPIRING me to create today........ She took technology which by todays standards would be considered 'primitive' & she used it to create something utterly ICONIC and totally UNIQUE.....We miss her genius. We all miss her.

The real testament to their work is that the theme is alive and well today and that people keep making new and different versions of it.

I think the strength of any composition can be judged solely on the deft use of twiddly bits.

I am absolutely smitten with Delia Derbyshire. An amazing trailblazer! May she rest in peace.

Will eternally be burned in my brain and am glad I finally stumbled upon the inner workings of this spectacular composition.

I like how she talks, reminds me of Florence Welch. Really soft, with a lot of mystery and an endless love and passion for music

That's brilliantly done the theme tune has grown in me it used to make me cry, I'm used to it now. Dr who in the 1960s

In my design degree at N staffs poly in the seventies, I did an audio visual module. The head of AV was John Jordan, he'd been the sound engineer on Clockwork orange, Kubrick had wanted him to stay on for 2001, but he'd been offered the position of the course leader in the AV department.As well as learning Animation using an ex Granada TV rostrum camera, we learnt about sound mixing and editing from other sounds at different speeds, not too dissimilar to what happens hear. The project he set us was a 30 second tune using three sound sources, I chose a fire engine siren, the engine of my ford escort 1100, and one of the girls going up the stairs in high heel boots. Speeded up and slowed down then edited and looped it sounded great. We also had funding from West Midlands arts to make a documentary about a baker in Macclesfield who still baked in the old ovens and delivered by horse and cart. Didn't need any of this in my industrial design life or teaching life, but it was great fun and really interesting.

2:32 That swoop sounds a bit like a mobile phone on vibration.

Amazing innovation and creativity in the days before synthesisers and MIDI control surfaces - and it still stands as one of the best intros of all time!

These two are absolute legends.

One of the most iconic TV themes of all time. Glad to have had the earliest doctors as part of my childhood

This is pure brilliance and genius. I wish I could just sit and be there learning everything. I could listen to them talk about the creative process for hours.

One of the most unsettling theme tunes ever.

The show is great but this original score is an absolute masterpiece painstakingly assembled by pure genius ahead of their time! To know what work was done to make this music makes me appreciate their efforts even more! Thank you for posting this video!!

Amazing for the time, there's been so many remakes and copycat versions which only serve to dilute the magic of the original theme - this will always be the best version, no computers or synthesizers - just hours and hours of sticking hundreds of bits of magnetic tape together and imagination using naturally occurring sounds.

Hearing Delia is an airfresh of calm

The fact that these people decided to record such a simple piece of music in the most excruciatingly tedious and difficult way to produce such a unique piece of music is the essence of Dr Who

I was just reading about this the other day and my mind was blown at how incredibly intricate and complex it was to create what is perhaps one of the most iconic theme tunes ever created. Such incredible creativity, nothing short of genius. We are forever grateful for giving us this gift. 🙏

Delia's voice has such a gorgeous timbre.

She is Amazing! She deserves more credit!!

what an amazing thing to find out about the music Doctor Who brills

Happy 80th Birthday Delia - forever remembered for taking that theme and turning it into something magical :)

Spine-tingling music. Transcendental. Beautiful.

This for me is the best Dr Who theme.

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was not just a workshop, it was a factory of awesomeness that could not be found elsewhere in that form. Similar maybe but not exactly like that.

0:09 ----- 'on a piece of paper and then left us to it'. Does this mean that Ron handed over that piece of paper and then left them to it? And if that paper is still in the building, then it's time to find it heheh.

Sequenced by copy, cut n paste magnetic tape and weird electronic oscillators. Amazing . And today they got cubase vst and doesn't get anything done with it. The best technology does not substitute for talent.

Masterpiece

Wow ....... sound editing was definitely very challenging and time consuming back in those days. I can definitely appreciate the effort and time, expertise and patience etc that the people had back then.

What a wonderful explanation! Digital music before the synthesizer!

So what I seem to hear from various and varied sources is that the BBC can be quite "a load of Dingo's Kidneys". All the more credit then to the remarkable and awesome creative minds... the Delia's and the Adams and the Pythons and all of the rest who somehow manage to traverse the abysmal plains of mind numbing middle management to bring to life such works of timeless brilliance. Bravo!

I don't pretend to know the many reasons as to why Delia was never credited for her realisation of this theme. Of course Ron Grainer came up with the basic outline of the tune - but she was the one who turned it into what we love and recognise as the iconic Doctor Who theme, now enjoyed for decades. In short, without Delia - _there would be no_ Who theme as we currently know it from the programme's first creation. So - in the colossal amount of episodes broadcast over many decades - it's just something of a shame that her significant contribution was never acknowledged on screen at all (apart from one time at the end of _"The Day of the Doctor"_ ). And that, in the modern era also - Ron Grainer, who has nothing to do with Murray Gold's new re-orchestrations - is credited on every single episode ever, but that Delia, continues not to be, and is unlikely to ever be - duly credited along side him.

Bassline - plucked bass string mounted on a wooden box recorded and sped up / slowed down and re-recorded several times to get the different pitches and notes combined with a valve oscillator (the swoops that follow the bass string rhythm), Melodyline - test tone generator mixed with 50's style rockabilly echo after the opening pre-melody opening bars swoops and hisses (oooooweeeeeeeooooooohhhhhh!) and this would also play throughout the theme (minus the echo) and is mixed with a high pitched gracenote produced by a mouth organ type instrument that the BBC RWS had, called a melodica (keyed instrument), Hisses - three pieces of white noise at different frequencies given drop off reverb and overlaid on backwards (when you reverse the white noise rhythm track - it appears to produce a ghostly sound), Dull low musical note - this appears just before the main melodyline kicks in, carries on through the middle eight section in various pitches and appears just before the main melody reprise at the end of the middle eight. Used as the pre-melodyline whoosh and on the middle eight.

You had me at "twiddly bits."

The effort to produce this theme is incredible,just goes to show ,if you believe in something so much,put the effort in,never give up, and you will come out with something very rewarding.Today everything is handed to you on a plate,boy how things have changed.

Its marvellous how in a time where symphosizer or how ever you spell them were non existent at the time. They still did it!

That old guy really reminds me of Michael Caine at certain points in his vocal pattern.

The real Doctor Who

If it wasn't for Ron and Deila and her team, there would be no Who theme and the may times it's been re-scored since '63 up until today.

That tune...never gets old ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 🎶

*Fun Fact: Delia Derby Shire was the first ever person to make electronic music in the 90s without instruments!*

" It's a spaceship. Brilliant! I got a spaceship on my first go." Mickey Smith in 'The Girl in the Fireplace' May 2006 =))

Talk about the hard way to make music, talented bunch!

These guys made the immortal theme

This is my all time fave theme song....maybe all time fave song fullstop...sorry Iron Maiden. It was the background music to my equally odd childhood. Had no idea how it was created til just now...wow.... i knew it had to be some rather unique process though. I have five children and we perform this accapella. Might name us the Wobbulators....or is that copyright? Adore it

0:26 i swear it was john cleese for a sec!

This is amazing! I love this insight of the creation of the theme song I love most in the world so much! It's awesome! *^*

Wob-u-lator? Sounds like one of those wibbly- wobbly, timey wimy things, hehe.

Everything they have said is exactly why Doctor Who should STILL be using the Original Theme. You cant beat a classic. It would fit Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor very nicely. Please Bring it Back for Season 9!

To quote Delia , " They kept on tarting it up ,.out of insistance"

Legends

this voice ... I can listen to whatever she says..

Delia's approach to musicality comes off very much the same as mine. I seriously don't know what I'm talking about when referring to what sounds actually are, but I can make stuff that sounds dope and that's good enough for me. It's crazy to think that, up until I looked up the making of the theme tune so as to better make a MIDI for it, I had no clue that anyone other than Ron Grainer was involved, and the fact that this sort of this isn't in the common knowledge makes me rather sad. 1:51 oh and apparently she was cute as a youngster too, on top of being an incredibly resourceful arranger, so there really is no excuse lol

Thank you so much for posting this!

That is very dedicated and creative work and it is still awesome and sounds great brilliant :)

Delia derbyshire, Dudley simpson, delia Derbyshire, peter Howell and paddy kingsland.

BBC Radiophonic Workshop! What an invaluable bunch!

Delia is responsible for more of the theme than Grainer is.

delia was the genius we all know and love in the '65 video, whereas in this one she just sounds like a crazy old lady

yes indeed i became a THING to love🎶🎶❤❤

I LOVE this post. Massive thank you🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

twiddly bits? love it!

"Don't ask me where it is! It's...somewhere". He knows exactly where the score is. Just don't ask him.

Delia is even cute as a old lady 💖

Delia Derbyshire. My ideal woman. I am in awe of her. Please, all you feminists, all you women who think you are the pioneers, look back at the previous generations. Delia Derbyshire was a pioneer of all Electronic music we hear today for God's sake!

This stuff is fascinating

Delia is so cool and will never know

Bless you

This is my crossing over theme❤️

Brillant

You know with the valve oscillators it says on the screen 5 swoops but only hear 3 sounds of the note are heard, does that mean that 3 sounds equals 5 swoops I’m assuming even though you don’t hear 5 sounds of the note being played because it goes with the swoops but then I guess it means that’s where you’d hear the 5 swoops played at the same time when hearing the theme.

Legends 👌🏻😎

I still do like the seventh doctor theme,it's ok for fans to like something that the creator doesn't like.

What a strange woman?🤔( Delia ) She sounds like the Doctor!🤨 She has so many voices inside her head!😂I like her!

I would love to see Grainer’s original score.

@2:53: That's one interpretation of multi-track recording...

Amo💙

Once again, Delia Derbyshire saw more than others. Her passion and 'otherness' shines through, the stale men talking about it? Not so much.

i wanna see Ron's written score