Dr. Who

Here’s a little something to get you in the mood for Halloween – Delia Derbyshire’s Nightwalker.

Derbyshire, best known for her 1963 arrangement of Ron Grainer’s Dr Who theme, has been called “the unsung heroine of British electronic music.”

via iiishtar, via Warren Ellis

The London Geek Community iPhone OSCestra performs the Dr. Who theme May 8th at Open Hack London.

Jim Purbrick organized the iPhone orchestra on the spot, using mrmr on the iPhone, and OSCulator and Ableton Live running on his Mac:

After booking a slot for the non-existant iPhone orchestra during the hack demos, I set out to make it exist. With a combination of arm twisting and volunteering I convinced 8 plucky hackers to join the orchestra then spent a few hours auditioning synth patches in Ableton and assiging MIDI controllers to their parameters and tweaking iPhone accelerometer smoothing settings in OSCulator to get a couple of Wiimotes working as drums.

I managed to organise an hour’s rehearsal on Saturday afternoon where we spent the first half trying to connect all of the devices and the second huddled around the laptop trying to hear the audio from the built in speakers. After a bit more tweaking I set up a 3rd Wiimote to launch loops and start and stop the set, allowing me to get in on the fun while conducting and borrowed an amp for our second and final rehearsal.

Adds Purbrick, “It went down a storm with the assembled geeks.”

Surviving members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop are scheduled to perform at London’s Camden Roundhouse this coming Sunday (May 17).

The event will feature Radiophonic alumni Peter Howell, Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb, Dick Mills and Mark Ayres, and offer a Q&A and concert.

“The programme is still evolving,” says Ayers, “but we will be playing a selection of pieces from the entire BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s output. Many tracks will be familiar from the recent CD reissues of BBC Radiophonic Music, The Radiophonic Workshop and Retrospective. These include Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, The Astronauts, Children’s TV tracks, music by Delia Derbyshire and John Baker, Seatrek and The Body In Question.”

Tickets are £20.00 each.

If any UK Synthtopia readers can make it to the event, come back and leave a comment!

via sonicstate

According to a BBC poll, the Doctor Who theme is the best television sci-fi theme ever. It spanked Red Dwarf, The X Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer for top honors.

The theme has been in use in various forms since 1963. The music was composed by Australian Ron Grainer and arranged by vintage synth hottie Delia Derbyshire at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. Derbyshire made use of test oscillators, primitive filters and tape manipulation to realize the piece.

For some, the Dr. Who theme is a key piece of electronic music history. For others, it’s a guilty pleasure. No matter what you think, though, it’s one of the most recognizable and memorable themes ever created.

Other themes that came in high in the poll included Star Trek, Thunderbirds, The Twilight Zone, Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Gratuitious embed of the original Dr. Who credits below.

ArcAttack Electrifies Texas Rockfest: The Dr. Who Theme

via OpenLabsInc:

Austin’s own ArcAttack plays Texas Rockfest during SXSW.

ArcAttack uses a MiKo to power two self-built Tesla coils, that produce “singing lightning bolts” which require no speakers. ArcAttack controls the coils through MIDI, as well as a full drum set controlled by robotic mechanisms.

ArcAttack are taking their MiKo on a European tour this summer, 2009.

For more information on ArcAttack, visit their website at www.arcattack.com.