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The Doctor Who theme music was created in 1963, composed by Ron Grainer and "realised" with electronics by Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The theme was one of the first electronic music signature tunes for television. Its haunting and ethereal sound has become as indelibly associated with the programme as the TARDIS or the Daleks, and the theme has endured over four decades.
1960s 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. Finally each note, on magnetic tape, was cut up and joined together in the correct order. Grainer was amazed at the resulting piece of music and when he heard it, famously asked, "Did I write that?". Derbyshire replied that he mostly had. Unfortunately, the BBC — who wanted to keep members of the Workshop anonymous — prevented Grainer from getting Derbyshire a co-composer credit and a share of the royalties. The theme can be divided into several distinctive parts. A rhythmic bassline opens and underlies the theme throughout, followed by a rising and falling set of notes that forms the main melody which is repeated several times. The bridge, also known as the "middle eight", is an uplifting interlude that usually features in the closing credits or the full version of the theme. During the early years of the series, however, the middle eight was also often heard during the opening credits (most notably in the first episode, An Unearthly Child). The theme has been often cited as being both memorable as well as frightening, priming the viewer for what was to follow. During the 1970s, the Radio Times, the BBC's own listings magazine, announced that a child's mother said the theme music terrified her son. The Radio Times was apologetic, but the theme music remained. Derbyshire created two arrangements in 1963: the first was released as a single, but was rejected by the producers. The second arrangement was used on the first episode of the programme. The two 1963 arrangements served, with minor edits and additions requested by the producers — most notably the addition of reverberation during the Patrick Troughton era and the "sting" at the start of the closing credits during the Jon Pertwee years — as the theme tune up to 1980 and the end of Season 17. In 2002, Mark Ayres used Derbyshire's original masters to mix a full stereo version of the theme. 1970s During the Third Doctor's era beginning in 1970, the "sting", an electronic shriek, was added to punctuate the episode cliffhangers and serve as a lead-in to the closing theme. A few episodes such as Spearhead from Space also used a slight rearrangement of the Derbyshire theme for the closing credits; the "middle eight" section was not heard very often during the Third Doctor era; during the era of the Fourth Doctor, the "middle eight" was usually only heard during the closing credits of the final episode of the season. For unexplained reasons, the first three serials of Season 8 reverted to the 1967 arrangement before reinstating the Third Doctor's arrangement for the last two serials of that year. In 1972, there was an attempt by Brian Hodgson and Paddy Kingsland, with Delia Derbyshire acting as producer, to modernise the theme tune using the Radiophonic Workshop's modular "Delaware" synthesiser (named after the Workshop's location at Delaware Road). The "Delaware" arrangement, which had a distinct Jew's harp sound, was not well received by BBC executives and was abandoned, with the master tapes being lost and the episodes that used it redubbed with the old Derbyshire arrangement. However, the Delaware version was accidentally left on some episodes which were sold to Australia, and survives today in this form. (The complete version of this arrangement of the music is included as an extra on the DVD release of Carnival of Monsters.) 1980s In 1980, the show's new producer, John Nathan-Turner, wanted to modernise the theme music for Season 18. Radiophonic Workshop staffer Peter Howell provided a new arrangement performed on analogue synthesisers, giving a more dynamic and glossy, but less haunting feel. Its bassline was created on a Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer, with added echo. The 1980 arrangement added the sting to the opening theme as well, while the "middle eight" was included in the closing theme arrangement of all episodes. The Howell theme was eventually replaced by a new arrangement by Dominic Glynn for Season 23's The Trial of a Time Lord (1986). This synthesizer-driven version was arranged to sound more mysterious than previous renditions, but was only used for this single season of the series. The Glynn arrangement was itself replaced by a new arrangement by Keff McCulloch for the Seventh Doctor's era beginning with Season 24 (1987), with the sting in this version being replaced by a crashing note instead of a shriek. Nathan-Turner stated that the new music, logo and title sequence were to signal a fresh start to the programme. This was the first version of the theme since the arrangement used in 1963-66 to incorporate the "middle eight" into the opening credits. 1990s The 1996 ''Doctor Who'' television Movie used a fully orchestrated version, arranged by John Debney (although Debney later revealed that he had originally intended to replace the original theme with one of his own design). This contained a new introduction, being a quieter piece of music over which part of the Eighth Doctor's (Paul McGann) opening narration was read, building up to a crescendo as it began with the "middle eight", a departure from previous versions of the theme. 2000s Murray Gold's arrangement of the theme for the 2005 series featured samples from the 1963 original with further elements added, including orchestral sounds (low horns, strings, percussion) and part of the Dalek ray-gun and TARDIS materialisation sound effects. The sting once again served as the lead-in to the theme, but Gold omitted the "middle eight" from both the opening and closing credits. Gold created a variation on his arrangement for the closing credits of The Christmas Invasion which was performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Unlike his arrangement for the 2005 series, this version restored the "middle eight"; it was also used for the closing credits of the 2006 series. A soundtrack of Gold's incidental music is in development and will be released by Silva Screen Records on December 4 2006. This date has not been confirmed by the BBC. Footnotes | ||||||||
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