The subject of Delia Derbyshire and her music has always fascinated me. I was surprised at the lack of journal articles, books, and even websites. For those of you interested in Delia, you may enjoy perusing this (although it isn’t anything spectacular or new) and I hope the collection of links in the sources at the end may be useful. I suggest going here to listen to recordings: https://wikidelia.net/wiki/Audio
The Lost Tapes of Delia Derbyshire
Delia Derbyshire was born in 1937. She was a composer of electronic music and was most well known for her works with the BBC Radiophonics Workshop. Her works were heard on all genres of radio and television from the British Broadcasting Corporation, the most well known of which was the theme to Doctor Who. Many of her works seem almost too sophisticated to be considered musique concrete. Some are better described as soundscapes, some ethereal, some are dense and complicated.
Before Delia was equipped with a tape player and an array of tone generators, she played piano, and later after she started work at the BBC she took up double bass (Brennan). She studied music and mathematics at Girton College in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK and graduated in 1959 (Hodgson).
After graduating, Delia went to the career center at her school and asked what she might do. She explained in an interview, “I said I was interested in sound, music and acoustics, to which they recommended a career in either deaf aids or depth sounding,” to which she decided to apply for Decca records, only to find that they did not employ women in the recording studio (Surface).
In 1960 she joined the BBC as an assistant studio manager, and later decided she wanted to work for the Radiophonics Workshop (Blackburn). It was not a usual for someone to want to work in the workshop, and Delia’s placement in it was to be temporary (delia-derbyshire.org). During this time, she also continued to work on independent projects with Brian Hodgson (Blackburn). Delia would dedicate the next decade to the Radiophonics workshop.
The workshop was designed as a way to make sound effects and music for low budget programs, and that is exactly what Delia did. The BBC did not employ composers. “I was told in no uncertain terms that the BBC does not employ composers and so it was only by kind of infiltrating the system that I managed to do music” (Radio Scotland).
Perhaps the most interesting part about the Radiophonics Workshop, and one of the things that makes Delia’s music so incredible, was the lack of equipment in the workshop. This was an age before synthesizers existed. The workshop had two professional tape recorders, access to an echo chamber, and 12 oscillators attached to a homemade keyboard (Marshall). All other sounds were natural sounds manipulated on tape, the very definition of musique concrete. “Ms. Derbyshire was well-known for favouring the use of a green metal lampshade as a musical instrument and said she took some of her inspiration from the sound of air raid sirens, which she heard growing up in Coventry in the Second World War” (Wrench).
The most famous example of music that Delia had a hand in was the Doctor Who theme. Delia did not write the music, but “realized” the music and arranged it using electronics. Although a majority of her work was interpreted from scores, her influence was obvious. Ron Grainer was the composer of the famous theme. Grainer was so shocked by what he heard that he asked, “Did I write that?” to which Delia replied, “Most of it.” Grainer even wanted her to receive credit and royalties, but this was not allowed by the BBC (Ayres).
Unfortunately, the BBC did not allow programs to credit the workshop or the arrangers or composers in the workshop (Sweet). The BBC did not maintain a list of the works produced, or who wrote them in the workshop, and we are unsure of exactly how much Delia wrote for the BBC (Marshall). Hodgson claims that it reached around 200 programs total. Delia went unknown for her works at that time and is still largely unknown today.
Delia also worked independently under various pen names outside of the BBC during her employment at the workshop (Marshall). She founded Unit Delta Plus with Brian Hodgson and Peter Zinovieff to promote electronic music (Delia-derbyshire.org). Later, she worked on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Macbeth, and then set up Kaleidophone, an independent electronic music studio (Hodgson).
In 1973, Delia left the BBC Radiophonics Workshop. She explains in an interview with Surface Magazine, “I didn’t want to compromise my integrity any further. I was fed up with having my stuff turned down because it was too sophisticated, and yet it was lapped up when I played it to anyone outside the BBC.” After leaving, she continued working at Kaleidophone for a short amount of time, then left music all together for years. It was not until the early 2000’s that she rediscovered music again when she began working with Sonic Boom on the album EAR (Delia-derbyshire.org).
Just as Delia was re-entering the music world, she died of renal failure on July 3rd, 2001 at the age of 64 (Hodgson).
As her attic was being cleaned out by her husband, boxes and boxes of tapes were found. A total of 267 reel-to-reel tapes were discovered. Most of the labels had fallen to the bottom of the boxes. Brian Hodgson was the first to go through the tapes. When Delia left, she emptied out her entire studio, there were many tapes that only had bits and pieces other works that were not meant to be on their own. Hodgson sorted out many of these from the more useful and interesting tapes. The collection went to Mark Ayres (Sweet). There were also 239 papers, programs, memos, and composition notes found in a box.
It was after this that the University of Manchester decided that they were interested in being involved in the digitization of this work. Dr. David Butler started this massive undertaking. The works were put on permanent loan to the university by Mark Ayres where they were digitized. The archiving process was completed in 2007 (Delia Derbyshire Archive). Dr. Butler explains that there is further intention to extend the archive, “We hope to be able to commission works from contemporary electronic musicians and also those who worked with her – surviving members of the Radiophonic Workshop” (Wrench).
It was the intent that the digitized recordings be accessible to the public. Unfortunately, this has not been possible yet. As the recordings were made for the BBC, and the BBC owns them. A petition for the release to the public domain of these tapes has been underway, but unsuccessful. The BBC replied to the petition, started by Martin Guy, saying, “… the section of the [Radiophonics Workshop] archive loosely referred to as ‘Delia’s archive’ is in fact a collection of tapes, most of which are simply ‘make up’ tapes – they are not ‘masters’. Of the many hundreds of tapes that Delia left very little has been catalogued, transferred to digital media or restored…” “…We continue to work with the [Radiophonics Workshop] catalogue with integrity and respect and as such do our best to maintain tapes and continue to catalogue and digitise work as and when financial constraints permit” (Petition).
In the early 1990’s, Delia did attempt to publish some of her music, but this was not financially feasible. “I asked the BBC how much it will be to license certain tracks – half a minute long – and they just say ‘All tracks are £500 each!” (Petition). This anecdotal evidence suggests that Delia would have wanted more of her work published, contrary to the BBC’s remarks saying, “Importantly, my understanding from some of those who worked with Delia is that she was very protective of her work and incredibly concerned with quality control. The reason she removed her make up reels in the first place was because she didn’t want anything being released that she hadn’t sanctioned” (Petition). These issues have been frustrating to those who want to study more of Delia’s music.
A side matter, but well worth mentioning, is that music then and still in many ways today was not a place women were considered to be, nor was her position at the BBC a place where women typically were. This was a matter of struggle in her life, but her absolute brilliance and command of music showed popular opinion to be wrong. Louis Niebur explains, “[Delia] is reported to have worked only after the ‘suits’ had gone home to avoid having to deal with the ‘wonder’ they faced at the prospect of an attractive woman doing a job traditionally identified as masculine” (Brennan).
Delia’s legacy lives on. Although people may not know who composed the theme music to their favorite shows, the works are memorable. Delia has a tremendous fanbase and many people have contributed to the effort of making her known and collecting information about her and her music, as seen in most of the sources for this paper. Her music was far ahead of its time. Although much of it is unusual, there are plenty examples of music that is not so extreme. For example, her realization of Bach’s Air on a G String, which is surprisingly intimate in nature, or Ziwzih Ziwzih, which has been remixed and gained popularity, or her many more upbeat television jingles.
Sources
Hodgson, B. (2001, July 6). Obituary: Delia Derbyshire. Retrieved December 04, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/jul/07/guardianobituaries1
Brennan, B. (2008, January 1). Breege Brennan’s thesis. Retrieved December 05, 2014, from http://wikidelia.net/wiki/Breege_Brennan’s_thesis
Surface Magazine (2000, May). Delia Derbyshire Interview. Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://delia-derbyshire.org/interview_surface.php
Delia-derbyshire.org. (n.d.). Retrieved December 7, 2014, from http://www.delia-derbyshire.org/index.php
Blackburn, C. (n.d.). About Delia. Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.cblackburn.fslife.co.uk/about_delia.htm
Radio Scotland interview. (1997, January 1). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://wikidelia.net/wiki/Radio_Scotland_interview
Ayres, M. (n.d.). A History of the Doctor Who Theme. Retrieved December 08, 2014, from http://markayres.rwsprojects.co.uk/DWTheme.htm
Collinge, P. (2010, March 27). [Radio broadcast].Matthew Sweet.
Marshall, S. (2008, April 1). The Story Of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Retrieved December 07, 2014, from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr08/articles/radiophonic.htm
The Delia Derbyshire Archive. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.centreforscreenstudies.manchester.ac.uk/delia.htm
Wrench, N. (2008, July 18). Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7512072.stm
Petition. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://wikidelia.net/wiki/Petition
