Delia Derbyshire Essay

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Flaherty 1 Delia Derbyshire Frank Flaherty Professor Beyer EMS MPATE-UE.1037.1.001.SP12 May 14, 2012 In the early days of electronic music, ground breaking contributions were a frequent Flaherty 2 occurance. For the first time, machines were being invented for the sole purpose of making electronic sounds in a musical setting. While some were fascinated and enchanted by this new art form, many people didn’t know how to feel about its new sounds. Delia Derbyshire was one artist who brought “future sounds” to the masses, playing a large part in the popularization of electronic music. Delia Derbyshire was born in Coventry, England in 1937. She was less than six years old during the Coventry Blitz air raids of World War II. She later realized, "...that my love for abstract sounds [came from] the air-raid sirens: that's a sound you hear and you don't know the source of as a young child... then the sound of the ‘all clear’ - that was electronic music."1 When she was older, she became more interested in the idea of music. She tried to gain employment in the field, but as a woman in the 1950s, she did not fit the profile that the male dominated record companies were looking for even though she already had a degree in music under her belt. However, in 1960, she was hired as a Trainee Assistant Studio Manager at the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation).2 When she found out about the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, a department whose purpose was to create new sound effects and music for radio programs, Delia became fixated on working there. Eventually, she convinced the reluctant BBC to allow her to change positions. Derbyshire then went straight to work creating a legacy of new sounds. Delia Derbyshire’s most famous recording, not to mention one of her earliest, is her 1963 theme for the television show, Dr. Who. Delia used an array of oscillators and filter modules
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