The Delian Mode - Delia Derbyshire documentary
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- Опубликовано: 4 май 2015
- The Delian Mode (Kara Blake, 2009) is a a short experimental documentary revolving around the life and work of electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, best known for her groundbreaking sound treatment of the Doctor Who theme music. A collage of sound and image created in the spirit of Derbyshire’s unique approach to audio creation and manipulation, this film illuminates such soundscapes onscreen while paying tribute to a woman whose work has influenced electronic musicians for decades.
thedelianmode.com 
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Just one correction. Ron Grainer did not write the Doctor Who theme. He just gave Delia a tapped out rhythm and some vague notes, like sweeping sounds and clouds. She created the theme but never got true credit for it during her all too short life.
No wonder he pushed for her to get composer credit (at least from what I've heard) but was denied by the BBC. I've always loved Grainer's music, but Delia is just in a class of her own it's awesome she's finally being discovered
didn’t she live to be 64? that’s pretty old 😕
@@jessihawkins9116 64 is not very old at all.
@@donnydarko7624 it is when your 15 😃
@@jessihawkins9116 Only if you’re not especially aware.
Imagine you're watching TV in 1963, all you know is the pop music of the time, and then you tune into Dr Who and that thing comes howling out of the TV. It must have been mind-blowing.
It was mind-blowing Eric. I was 7 at the time.
To be honest if it wasn't for Delia and Dick Mills then Doctor who would of never been like what it is Today,
Like Tam, I was 7 in 1963, and the Dr Who music, along with the visuals that introduced the programme warped my young brain irreparably.
@@bobgreen623 I was 13 in '63, and while the visuals soon started to bore me, the Dr. Who music never did, and I'd try to turn the TV volume up quick so I wouldn't miss it. 3 years later I was watching Hendrix play in North London pubs, with similar - and permanent - mind-blowing results. Things moved quickly in that remarkable decade!
@@morganfisherart They certainly did! Even my child and early teen mind knew there was definitely a lot going on, and I loved it.
Delia was an extremely intelligent girl from a working class background. In the late 50's she was interested in "sound, music and acoustics," and became one of the pioneers of electronic music when only reel-to-reel tape was available. After graduating college... "she applied for a position at Decca Records, only to be told that the company did not employ women in their recording studios." That breaks my heart. To think they turned her away only because of her sex. So she got jobs teaching and in music publishing and it wasn't long before the talented young lady was hired by the BBC as an a trainee assistant studio manager.
Delia had a lot of contacts within the industry. She could easily have leveraged a position somewhere else in the music business if she so desired. The problem wasn't her sex. She just couldn't deal with advancements in technology which she wasn't prepared to be flexible with and became an anachronism. It didn't help that she was struggling with the pressures of her role and her exit from the industry became inevitable. Her history following that exit does not suggest she was somehow frozen out of the business because of her gender or any other factor. Rather she consciously sought to be free of it all and had no real interest in going back. It's easy to believe there is some great tragedy to Delia's life. But I don't think she would see it that way. Still, she deserves to be recognised for her outstanding work at the BBC. Although special mention should also go to Desmond Briscoe, John Baker, Daphne Oram and a host of others who contributed as much or moreso than Delia.
@@deaddropholiday well obviously she did succeed despite this set back but there's no getting away from the fact being a woman did close some doors to her
@@NickSBailey Of course. But I think the direction of Delia's life was driven by myriad complex forces which amount to a hell of a lot more than mere gender. Besides, she WAS a success at the BBC. She was responsible for an iconic piece of experimental music which has touched the lives of millions of people around the world and gained the admiration and respect of her peers in the industry. She *did that* despite being a woman from a "working class background". Could circumstances have been different and Delia been showered with wealth and fame commensurate with her talents? Sure. But how many of the thousands of men and women of various creeds, colours, races etc. who have worked at the BBC in a hundred years achieved as much?
Well of course, she sounds so working class 🙃
@@leggobeasty I actually have a problem with the way she talks. In some way she sounds like a really posh person, but she also sounds like someone who has been taught later in life to speak that way, and still sometimes it sounds like it's an image she wants to build or even making fun of the posh accent. Which one is it actually?
There was SO MUCH material that came out of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop that other composers were merely doing to deadlines for money, but only Delia Derbyshire's material knocks you back on the floor when you hear it now. She has such a defined & yet shapeless sound. It's cruel that she was never given funding to simply compose her masterpieces.
What I felt was remarkable about her other than her gifted sense of rhythm was how she was able to avoid notes & just use tones to create pieces which still gave you an emotional response.
There is nothing which bores me more than traditional 4/4 simple 3-minute love songs with no humanity. The material pushed by the industry today does _not_ inspire beyond fame, wealth & insecurity. Delia's material still inspires people when they hear it because it is such a unique sound. It's such a mysterious collection.
Business kills Art. It killed her want to create.
I get upset when my DAW has a hiccup and doesn't work lightning quick. After seeing the process she and others had to go through I'll never take for granted modern music recording and creation. Definitely a pioneer and legend
MrCornWolf preach brotha
It's funny, every electronic musician always seems to be astounded that at some point in the past... There was so LITTLE to work with... did the same thing when I watched this.
I mean when I got into synths there was MIDI and Tape recorders and some DAT systems - IF YOU COULD AFFORD THEM.
Later, when I was at college, you had to have a floppy disc for the ST, one for the sampler (Akai S950 I think) and you would ideally set up Cubase to ensure the program changes going off to the very few sound modules to get the sounds right every time....
Everything would take time - often eating into your booking slot you had set.
Think it's the reason why I often put utterly unreasonable limitations on how tracks are made...
got 30 Gb of samples?
Sorry, you can only have 500kb.
Oh you've got a DAW with unlimited plug-ins? SORRY - You're using two.
It's through those limitations that creativity HAS to happen. If it doesn't - you end up doing nothing.
I think we take far too much for granted in this age of DAWs and throwaway music production. Those like Delia and her colleagues in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop really don’t get the credit they deserve as we wouldn’t be where we are now without their pioneering work in music production and sound manipulation. It’s a shame that those days of tape splicing and real hands on methods are sadly a faded memory. What a sad end to her life as Delia faded away without anyone really knowing who she was and what she achieved.
How had I never heard of this woman before this?! This is why I love RUclips! What a boss!!!
Check out the recent documentary “Sisters With Transistors”… it’s where I first heard of her.
Same!!
Because RUclips's algorithm is fucked. It will show all those videos which we have marked "Not Interested" or "Do not Recommend this Channel" hundreds of times, again and again. But rarely shows the videos/channels belonging to the genres we hit like on.
Me too!
Damn!! She was a genius and beautiful!!! Rest In Peace Delia!!
As a kid who grew up in 80's Britain some of the scariest things I watched back then were repeats from old 70's shows and the one thing they had that managed to scare my young mind out of it's wits was the use of sound. Visually some of the shows were a shambles with low budgets and it showed but the sound dept would always make it seem realistic with odd other worldly sounds that would unnerve you.
To this day the majority of attempts at modern horror have failed to register with me as with CGI and digital sound everything looks and sounds so polished that it doesn't scare me as much as analogue and mono did.
I just found a copy of White Noise...An Electric Storm at my local flea market for 3 bucks....now I know how lucky I was ! I saw Eno with Roxy Music in 1972....now I know he was imitating Delia !
White Noise came to me in 1975 and it never occurred to me that Delia is it's basis. There's a "Black Mass" that is one of the heaviest things ever and it's all her production!
Stunning, unique record.
She basically created the entire alphabet of analog electronic sound on her own. Amazing.
Sure, if you pretend other pioneers such as Les Paul and Raymond Scott were never born. But, let's not split electronic hairs. 🐧
I’m adding Richard Maxfield as another electronic music pioneer as well as V. Khlebnikov, and Luigi Russolo before that
This take is giving pretty heavy "heroic inventor" vibes. The reality is that the sounds one produces with a piece of technology are a reflection not only of the user but significantly of the technology itself.
I think we need to see a meticulously crafted movie about her work along the lines of Hidden Figures.
thank you, hidden figure.
There is one! Look up “Sisters With Transistors”… it’s excellent.
She was such a lovely innovator, so very much ahead of her time. A musical genius. I could listen to Delia's music all day. And such a soothing, pleasing voice too.
I hope a sculpture artist is watching this documentary because I'd like to see a statue of Delia, perhaps one of her standing overlooking the reel to reel tape recorder, on the front lawn of the BBC offices.
Delia, was the Albert Einstein of electronic music.
Her music is like a teacher to me and I'm still learning.
I can't even come close by trying to imitate the works that she created.
Although I try to add a " Delia effect" in what I do.
Amazing🌙
or some modern digital artist to built a bridge in arts.. or whatever..
the ideas of her were so futuric and timeless, too.
she had should be ennobled for that
Janet Craft I reckon a sonic sculpture
"First they kill you, they they make a statue of you". -Sicilian saying
A lovely idea Janet, sadly the offices are gone.
Danger of Death ... I figured on that. Pity.
After years of listening to music, mainly electronic music, ive literaly only just become aware of Delias work. What an incredible mind. It seems that as time goes on her music becomes more and more relevant. Ive never really taken any notice of the Dr Who track but now i realise how important it is, there is probably more music around today than there has ever been that owes so much to that track. Itss somehow hard to know how to express how incredible Delia was, or still is.
Queen of Electronica
I used to sneak out of my bedroom when I was 5 to hear the Dr. Who theme song when it came on late at night.
My Dad loved Dr Who.
I love what she says at 17:02...I agree completely. The difference between the 60's and the 70's was like night and day. Something shifted so drastically in a way that I haven't seen since.
@@nikolovesfood en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock
This sounds really fresh and groundbreaking today, I really can't begin to imagine the impact that these sounds would have on someone's mind fifty years ago
I love this, but can't help feeling for Delia. A girl out of time, bless her. No wonder she turned to drink. Can relate.
Some of the incidental stuff you hear through this program could have come from a modern Aphex Twin album. They were so far ahead of their time.
I remember sitting in front of our tiny fuzzy B&W TV with dodgy reception to watch Dr. Who on a Sunday early evening back in the late 1960s. I loved the Dr. Who theme. It was mesmerising and unlike anything on the radio or elsewhere on television. What an interesting person Delia was :)
I've never been able to get into Doctor Who personally, but the theme tune remains to this day, one of my all time favourites for a synth-head like me. It's literally perfect to me.
Watching the process she had to go through in order to create her music is awe-inspiring. We have things so much easier these days with our DAWS and soft synths.
She basically was Dr. Who a timeless being putting together sounds before anyone was ready. It’s amazing that she was able to find such a huge platform for her work as she did. A lot of brilliantly creative people are not able to be heard and enjoyed. I’m glad they released the recordings as well. But nowadays I’m sure people would just try to drop it into a song as a sample and not think about the work it took to create it.
I've been on an early electroacoustic kick recently and have just realized how many unknown (and great) women composers were part of the early electronic & electroacoustic movements in the 1950s and 60s, like Delia. Thanks for posting this.
Oh she was a true pioneer, the innovation, the passion and pride. You can't find that today. What a great woman
lets make those recordings widely available!!
What an amazing and inspiring person Delia was! I'm going to ask my daughter to watch this as I think she'll find it incredibly empowering and motivational. So glad they honoured Delia's legacy with this documentary.
Delia was absolutely gorgeous with a beautiful calming voice ❤️
fantastic end. i was sad, imagining that there would be little of her music available online, but then 'the univeristy of manchester announced today the discovery of 267 tapes of work by composer delia derbyshire." much happy
fucking hell a mate played me white noise , an electric storm her band / project . it is a masterpiece , so much dub so much head spinningly good WOW
This documentary is absolutely FANTASTIC!!
One of the true geniuses and pioneers of modern recording and editing techniques.
Delia, Joe Meek and many others are sadly forgotten geniuses.
What an amazing woman. A creative mind like hers comes along once in a blue moon. I am glad she is being recognised for her pioneering work even if it is years later. What I would give to be able to sit down and have a conversation with her!
Delia was a genius, as was Daphne Oram, who also worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. I consider listening to this work a guilty pleasure. I like to keep it to myself, so I never share it with anyone.
Johnny Buck (why guiltily? Were you raised to believe there’s only one kind of proper music?)
And you're a bit late to the party if you think you're hoarding her to yourself.
"The Dreams" by Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange is a masterpiece.
Something about her reminds me very much of Glenn Gould. Both geniuses with some apparent quirks such as their shared involuntary moving to their music that doesn't seem to be a conscious head bobbing kind of thing but a neurological tick. Very interesting.
Wow! Amazing talent! We all love the Dr Who theme that Delia recorded ;-) and on analog tape! Brilliant!!! I would have gotten a migraine recording all them cool electronica sounds via analog! That's dedication my friends.
Brilliant documentary. A sensitive portrayal of an extraordinary pioneer.
My hero, quite honestly. Hearing her compositions inspired me to explore sound.
An alternative/progressive sound/music sculptress ... what a woman, what a genius ... the late great Delia Derbyshire
Love her voice
Me too lol
I think I have a retrospective crush on Delia. Am I allowed to say that in 2018?
Lovely, I could have sat through 3 hours of this. Even 25 mins I think gave more insight into her thinking than all the other excellent docs of recent years. I'm just annoyed it wasn't screened alongside the 50th anniversary episode of a certain TV programme - that would have been perfect. And she was so right about those synths. Ugh.
Dave P as you heard, modern sample based synthesizers were a dream to her. The DAW I have here was released not long after her death and would have been amazing to her, it is even designed to emulate working with tape. couple of taps (no mouse) for most of what she spent hours doing.
Mijc Osis
I appreciate that. But were those hours wasted? I don't think so. It's the curse of every pioneer to be ahead of the technology that makes it more widely available. But Delia and her contemporaries were as much about process as outcome. That's what makes it magic. :)
I’ve only just heard about this documentary and as a long time fan of Delia’s work, it was great to hear more about her and her work.
I saw dr who for the first time in the year 76, and delia derbishire's music made me hallucinate, then in the 80s, electronic music and English new wave reminded me of that aesthetics, sounds and noises, atmospheres and rhythmic clicks, I thought I could be from the same instrument or recording system, now I understand that she was a forerunner of my tastes and preferences, her work is wonderful
wow, this was so beautiful done, thank you! I would have loved to have been a student of hers. I found myself mesmerized not only by her music, but her storytelling, right down to analyzing the way the air slides through her teeth when she speaks, and with so much enthusiasm, I love how much she loved sound.
This is absolutely fabulous. I though I knew a lot about the history of electronic music, but I'd never heard of Delia Derbyshire before now. Many thanks for posting this.
Same
I could listen to her voice for hours. A voice matched only by her beautiful music.
the main plucked bass, the bass slides (an organ-like tone emphasising the grace notes), the hisses, the swoops, the melody, a second melody line (a high organ-like tone used for emphasis), and the bubbles and clouds.
''Everything was out of tune in the world'' The Internal & Eternal beauty of this woman, brings a tear to my eye.
Happy 80 birthday Delia love your work.xx
Really great documentary about an amazing, pioneering woman. The documentary has this beautifully odd mood all the way through, created by both Delia's evocative sounds and interesting camera work. Nicely done.
this is insanely inspiring, both sound and footage, great work
I''m still in love with Delia.
Pioneer... Legend...Amazing Woman...
.
so glad I discovered this part of the history of electronic music.
Never heard of her, but now i have. What a genius she was. Regards from Germany 👋
Bruh, the Doctor Who Theme has been around for so long now, it can have a cameo, within its own show.
i love how she taps her foot!
Delia was alive for the demoscene. I think if she was introduced to an Amiga 500 and ProTracker she'd have been in her element and might have been well known among the demoscene, probably joining a crew just to release her music
Great documentary on an important artist, thanks for sharing, Jim
That was a wonderful documentary, thank you for sharing it!
I'm really annoyed. Annoyed that it's taken me this long to find this doco about DD! Thanks so much for uploading!
What a lovely woman...way ahead of her time...xx
Beautiful lady, beautiful mind.
The women 🚺 that created the first sampler...
The hard way what a amazing lady
Yes. I'd call that music. I've shared this a dozen times now.
You wonder if Jean-Michael Jarre ever heard any of Delia’s work, it would have been amazing to think what he though of what she was doing in the 60’s
To "plan" music, is very difficult.
But to plan without the playing, takes a bit of genius.
This is just too short and does not do her or the music she created and helped shape, justice. As a kid, i owned some old analogues and was a huge fan of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. I truly wished i had met her and even more so to have worked with her.
White Noise is a fantastic album. Thank you for uploading :-)
She has the most beautiful voice.
5:26 - despite an entirely different production workflow, wine bottles in different stages of emptiness continue to be a very important part of my music.
Is that actually Delia herself moving and talking at 4:26 onwards? (It's just the voice sounds slightly different to other examples of her voice on this documentary - and I wonder why she would have been filmed at this point when she was not well known then. Anyway, what a lovely documentary. I love this woman's voice, passion and British idiosyncratic approach to beauty. Thanks so much for making and posting.
Late reply but ..it might be from BBC programme about the workshop, probably Tomorrow’s World. The sound of her voice will be different as I expect the phone recordings were much later.
Musique concrete - French for industrial music, :) Love this doc, and her work had to have inspired Genesis P-Orridge in creating industrial music.
I never heard of her, but this is a fabulous bio about Delia.
Happy Birthday #DeliaDerbyshire (May 5)
Genius of electronic music--I especially love her haunting, mysterious "Blue Veils and Golden Sands", her Inventions for Radio (Dreams and Amor Dei), her collaboration with White Noise, An Electric Storm ("The Visitations" and "Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell" are nightmarish, trippy--perfect soundtracks for Halloween), and her collaboration with Brian Hodgson on the horror movie soundtrack Legend of Hell House.
This is hypnotizing. Her voice is amazing, this strange recording. It reminds me of a Legendary Pink Dots album. I think this is the woman who said, "Welcome to the Golden Age". The sound of this video is absolutely hypnotizing
It reminds me of Bioshock
Thanks for sharing this!
It’s such a shame she never got a credit for the Dr Who theme as the theme we have today would be nothing with out her work on it..
And not forgetting the amazing album she made with David Vorhaus... The white noise.
A truly unique and emotionally engaging album.
fantastic documentary. thank you so much for uploading this. if you haven't already seen my delia derbyshire video's then please have a look.
Goddess of electronic music
I'd love to hear those recordings today!
simply amazing
It is inspiring to see and hear these pioneers.
Let's not forget Ron Grainer.
Doctor Who theme is his composition.
Derbyshire took a melody and moved it decades into the future. Ron Grainer's original score was a dreadful "Cop Show" affair, but the melody is still his.
Maybe the biggest shame is that Derbyshire wasn't given more great melodies to work her magic with.
On a different topic... how the hell did a girl from Coventry, with parents from Preston, end up with that accent? She makes the Queen sound rough.
Virtually everyone from the time spoke like that, regardless of where you came from.
excellent. thanks for uploading this
I feel Delia at my shoulder as i browse my numerous vst instruments and think 'Whats the point' Although i play regularly, i haven't recorded anything for ages. It's all so ephemeral. I live in hope that one day i will 'make' music again.It is regrettable fact that one cannot un-invent technology. Great documentary and thanks for it.
Truly fascinating and beautiful. What an inspiring insight into a wonderful and intriguing musician
I always loved the inventive techniques and craftsmanship of the old days. Today everything is so convenient with electronic music and that's why everything sounds the same. There are parameters set up and equipment you have to adhere to and can't really bend much. DAWs and synthesizer presets. Nothing is done from scratch these days and everything is so easy that any chowder head could put out an album, and I'm not sure why people think that's a good thing.
unending inspiration form the Queen of Electronic music.
The best thing about Doctor Who is the theme. Thank you, Delia!
beautiful work
The BBC always had hidden 'stars' within its ranks 🥰 🎼 🎵 xxx
What a wonderful voice ........
Indeed a world free of politics and hatred, just pure creativity, what a marvelous bunch of people
Well stop treating me like shit. Duu
Delia created the concept of sampling and she didn't knew that it was going to repercute on the whole modern music industry, it's amazing
Now that’s someone we need a Hollywood biopic of!
way ahead of her time!
13:28 so, in other words, this girl would be a SoundCloud _titan,_ is what we're seeing here.
What an incredible person.
I find her and her work so inspiring! It makes me feel quite guilty at the tools I have at my disposal, compared to what she had to invent to work with.
Great channel - right up my street but loads of stuff I don’t know!!!