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From: acsgjjp@sunybcs.UUCP (Jim Poltrone)
Newsgroups: net.tv.drwho
Subject: Re: Who's theme
Message-ID: <1713@sunybcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 13:46:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: sunybcs.1713
Posted: Tue May 28 13:46:33 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 30-May-85 07:47:39 EDT
References: <175@nicmad.UUCP> <5550@Shasta.ARPA>, <600@wjh12.UUCP> <549@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> <1151@ihuxe.UUCP>
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 30

[vworp, vworp, vworp...]
> The "Who" theme has always been electronic; synthesized without a synthesizer.
> I think the show was a ground-breaker in this respect. Back in '63 the BBC
> Radiophonic Workshop (a sort of advanced sound-effects workshop that grew up
> and is still growing with radio drama) produced the original theme using tone-
> generators, variable-speed tape and **hours** of editing.

I have heard the entire original theme on "The Dr. Demento Show" -- I have an
audio-tape copy of it.  It has the "bridge", which was hardly used (as other
postings have stated).  Since the Moog synthesizer wasn't developed until
1964, the only electronic music available at the time were tone generators and 
tape manipulation -- the technique called 'musique concr`ete'.  Natural sounds
were recorded and played back in different ways.  A good example of musique 
concr`ete is the following:

> Trivia note: The TARDIS "time-belch" is produced by scraping a bass piano-
> 	string and playing the recording back at low, variable speed.

If you want the other Doctor (i.e. the Doctor of Dementia) to play the
original theme, send (or phone) your request in.  He also plays other
SF-related songs (Who, Star Trek, and Hitchhikers); one that might be of 
interest here is Jim Burrill's "The Doctor".   

Getting back to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, does anyone know what they 
now have?
-- 
From the House on the Knoll, not far from the Holt...
Jim Poltrone  (a/k/a Poltr1, the Last of the Raster Blasters)
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