Music from Doctor Who
My paper is finished so I’ve been reading about the Doctor Who theme today, and boy, was it a huge undertaking. Listen to this:
The original 1963 arrangement of the Doctor Who theme is widely regarded as a significant and innovative piece of electronic music. Recorded before the widespread introduction of synthesisers, Delia Derbyshire used musique concrète techniques. Each and every note was painstakingly handcrafted using pre-recorded individually struck piano strings as well as electronic equipment such as wave signal generators, noise generators, filters and square- and sine-wave oscillators (which were themselves rare at the time), with the results pitch-shifted if necessary. Each individual note in the Doctor Who theme was individually created using these instruments, and recorded onto magnetic tape.
It goes on.
For your listening pleasure, I’ve found some neat (but in no way as good as the majestic and terrifying original) remixes.
First, the original:
A version by Jon Pertwee called “Who is the Doctor?”:
By The Dub Syndicate (feat. Doctor Pablo):
Orbital remix:
A combination of all the themes as they appeared on the BBC:
A making-of in the 80s:
Finally, my favourite discovery that was indeed confirmed by the above Wikipedia article: a Doctor Who reference in One of These Days by Pink Floyd. You can hear it when it gets to the part with the ink splotches that look like galaxies.
And if you have trouble hearing it in that version, it’s also here:
jtl said,
July 19, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Whatever the hell version of the theme song that went with the Doctor Who shows that TVO used to put on back in the ’80s used to freak me the fuck out. And I know I’m not alone in this; pretty much everyone I’ve asked about this topic has wholeheartedly agreed with me.
(It used to be on right after Today’s Special. Sometimes I’d forget what was coming next, and while I ran to the TV — “Remotes are for lazy people,” my dad used to say — that theme song would send chills up my spine.)
Hell, even typing out the words “Doctor Who” make me a bit uneasy.
And no, I’ve never seen a single episode of the show. Never plan to, either.
Eve said,
July 19, 2007 at 9:48 pm
It’s so good!
I’m the sort of kid that would run underneath the table when the wheelers drove around in Return to Oz. There’s a whole story that my parents used to tell where they went to turn off the movie when I ran out only to hear a faint wail from under the table: “I was watching that.”