1969: What Is ELECTRONIC MUSIC? | Workshop | Radiophonic Workshop | BBC Archive

[@macronencer]

11:28 Daphne Oram here, calmly inventing the WAVETABLE, now a standard feature of soft synths and in use on countless EDM tracks half a century later. What an amazing woman, I admire her so much!

[@JonnyMonday]

Yeah, my jaw dropped. I knew of the Oramics machine but I didn't know one just painted a waveform on a sheet of glass then popped it in like a piece of bread in a toaster and out comes the sound of the wave. Incredible. And that multi track tape recorder built using magnetised 35mm film. Utter genius.

[@kvmoore1]

​​@@JonnyMonday Absolutely! I was surprised to see that myself. In fact, I've always wondered how those weird sound effects from the 60's and 70's sci-fi movies were made and what kind of equipment was used to create them. I knew synthesizers played a role, but many of these sounds were very different and unusual compared to what you would hear straight from a synthesizer. Also all of that tape cutting and splicing looks very time consuming. I admire all of the hard work and dedication that was put into creating these amazing effects. You just don't hear these types of effects anymore these days. I guess this would be something harder to achieve today considering the fact tape machines are not as easy to come across today. Oh, and this is the first time I've ever seen an Oramics machine. I didn't know such a device even existed. WOW!!!!! Also the tape machine was an instrument, Wow!!! I guess I learn something new everyday!!!

[@JonnyMonday]

@@kvmoore1 The stories about the Radiophonic Workshop never cease to amaze me. I keep trying to find out more because their creativity is always inspiring. Ben Burt (the Star Wars sound designer) shows how a lot of early electronic music was created in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpemq6uYrd-noJo There's also someone called Hainbach on KZbin who has lots of great videos about working with tape, test equipment and all sorts of strange technologies. I'm sure you'll get a lot out of watching them.

[@Cr4z3d]

@@JonnyMonday Heinbach is great.

[@bobjames2906]

not only that, but she has the first digital filter on her rack just there too amazing slice of English genius all in a Kent oasthouse

[@longdongsilver4719]

This lady invented the very first version of the actual DAW half a century ago. I'm amazed!

[@Instrumentals4Sale]

It wasn’t digital… so an AAW

[@sefusolace410]

@@Instrumentals4Sale👉🏾 I guess you would pronounce that as: “AW” minus the “D” 😂😂😂

[@morbidmanmusic]

no, she didn't. got to go back further than that.

[@fivestringslinger]

This video is a goldmine of samples for EDM.

[@5050songs]

Daphne Oram was decades ahead of her time!

[@experi-mentalproductions5358]

And the world still hasn't caught up.

[@Isochest]

Agreed

[@pauls8456]

Still a useful explanation of the subject over 50years later….

[@JohnSmith-pn2vl]

the beauty of physics

[@brainwithani5693]

The British sense of humor is absolutely the best. The guy who made the "medieval" instruments was straight out of Monty Python.

[@jmr-marc]

Surprenant de voir la qualité des enregistrements " vidéo " de cette époque, aussi bien conservée et restituée .

[@emulgatorx]

Indeed. All the instrument illustrations a very creative and explained with a straight face. I lost it at "Plogflumpen (for gromelling)" (around 8:37)

[@nicknewman7848]

Nice to see Daphne doing her vibrato by hand.. you can then do it as fast or slow as you like depending on how your mood takes you.

[@zsigmondkara]

Her hand drawn 35mm film control signals are the perfect analog (pun intended) of our MIDI CCs. Astonishing!

[@Pigeon-envelope]

Top pun there sir

[@MiguelBaptista1981]

Absolute respect for these people.

[@livvy94]

So cool to see Desmond Briscoe in colour!

[@Kreln1221]

*I wish they would have talked with Delia Derbyshire... Her work on the Doctor WHO theme was iconic...* 😕

[@SplotchTheCatThing]

Explore the channel a bit, I think I remember seeing an interview with her on here before...

[@nicknewman7848]

"The Shagbut, which is a two man trombone.. which is made mainly of boiled leather and 25 feet of copper tubing"

[@jeitoots]

Ha. Sounds like something off The Day Today!

[@imansfield]

Shatners Bassoon!

[@jeitoots]

@@imansfield Classic

[@markrussell5587]

I would've died if I had to explain the Shagbut, anyway here's the sackbut, kzbin.info/www/bejne/oKG0knqAic1lo7c

[@BelsizeParkkeeper]

A sentence designed to produce a tumescence.

[@ridgerider7402]

What an absolute gem 👌

[@DayneDimmick]

Nice to see where Conan O'Brien got his start. Hair was better then.

[@paulaitix77]

i knew it he's a time traveler

[@ion7701]

💀

[@susiefairfield7218]

🤣🤣

[@Leandrob13]

Can’t be unseen lol

[@DrBigFMC]

I specifically came here to post something about Conan 😅

[@GrahamMilkdrop]

Back when the BBC was at the cutting edge of innovative creativity and hadn't yet become the corporate monster it is today. Electronic music has many female pioneers who ought to be celebrated more but now it is almost as if electronic music is considered to be too ghetto to be taken seriously! Beats and sound synthesis are fundamental in the exploration, communication and understanding of human experience and therefore art worthy of the highest merit! Daphne's music is amazing and her imagination and inventive curiosity are truly inspirational.

[@Outside998]

It was still a monster back then. The reason it is called a Radiophonic Workshop is because if she called it music, she would get into confrontations with the BBC orchestra. The BBC even turned her down because they "had all the sounds they need" because of the orchestra. She got her studio 16 years after she joined the BBC and got some very old equipment to use. She composed sounds for Dr. No, but was not credited for her work. As she said: "They wanted my work, but didn't want me."

[@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg]

​@@stevenmuller7789 that's kind of the point, though, isn't it? That their music, their creativity, and the huge impact they had on the industry - all of that is largely forgotten or unknown, because they didn't fit the stereotype.

[@bettyleeist]

I didn’t know that this film existed?This look’s very interesting!Thank You for showing this to us!

[@birchsongsltd.6831]

She completely describes our digital recording process today! I was 8 years old when this film was produced.

[@racefaceec90]

i was chuffed to read on wikipedia that daphne oram was born in my home town of devizes. they were definitely pioneers of electronic sound and music for sure.

[@НЕКРОМУНГЕР]

Неправда! Она родилась в Степанакерте в Армении! И в двухлетнем возрасте её увезли в Англию!

[@MikeGreenwood51]

Adding to your picture of Devizes and music. I was forced to attend Devizes School for 2 years back in 1972 and '73. Music twice a week or maybe just once was on the curriculum and something which was a bit of a surprise to me was that we were assigned to do musical analysis of a piece of work which a pupil brought in. What was suprising was the piece was Mr. Mike Oldfeild's Tubula Bells. Very inovative for the times and well ahead of a lot of music being written and preformed.

[@tooruoikawa8985]

Fantastic explanations of the topic, many sound engineers and “beatmakers” would really benefit from learning this!

[@misspurrr-fect3684]

Beautiful Cut glass English accents ❤

[@a-damthemansixtynan4463]

11:00 She was right entirely. Once you have a way to automate any parameter of a sound you want, then you can create any music you want.

[@arthurmee]

The BBC Radiophonicc Workshop is where the original theme music for Dr Who was created first heard by the public in November 1963. I remember it well. 😊

[@yvidiot]

Delia Derbyshire!!!!

[@MikeGreenwood51]

Doctor Who first appeared on the BBC Television Service at 17:16:20 GMT on 23 November 1963; this was eighty seconds later than the scheduled programme time.

[@philtobin9510]

The home studio Dephne speaks of is, Tower Folly in Meopham, Kent.

[@leopoldbluesky]

Stunning film! Just watched this whilst taking a break from playing with synths and samplers - these pioneers paved the way for idiots like me to make wobbly sounds :)

[@roberthaines4221]

Briscoe's voice is just _wonderful_

[@FogTub]

This was great. I'd love to find something like this featuring Delia Darbyshire.

[@TrumptonMayor]

There are a few bits and bobs on Delia on KZbin when i put her name in the search bar.😊

[@YouGotitbaby]

Wow she drew a waveform! This is something one can do in vst like xfer serum and zebra2. That's amazing. It may sound unconventional and noise to some but I love it

[@majordabalert]

I’ve really been enjoying these old music videos you guys have been posting. Thanks.

[@mig77ish]

Conan o'brien really has many professions.

[@nomadenview]

LMAO 😂😂😂😂

[@KokowaSarunoKuniDesu]

Didn't know about Daphne Oram. I thought the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was the Delia Derbyshire show. Too bad she doesn't show up in this vid.

[@MarkMcCluney]

This is wonderful. Is there any more of the full programme?

[@minamur]

hard to think of someone cooler than an early electronc musician

[@isaiahromero9861]

For real. Back then you basically had to be a computer scientist to be able to do this stuff

[@TheCatLady65]

"Archive" lol! I remember watching this originally. Yes, I'm old :)

[@cateclism316]

One of my favorite college courses was Electronic Music! My time in the studio was always too short!

[@johnnyworzel3741]

We don’t see stuff like this on the telly these days. People want it, it’s good, but they don’t provide it.

[@MikeGreenwood51]

Society has changed so much since those days. Back in those days their was a form of togetherness which no longer exists since Margarat Thather as Education Minister removed Milk from the School childrens diet. The change had started some years before Thaterism. But some of her later policies were more nails in the coffin of the older more united society where people felt more together and more like a community rather than pigeons in pigeon holes to be milked of all they have for the benifit of a few. So began a culture where the Ursuers in power would loan people money with interest for their education. Universitys used to be free and students I guess felt almost as if they had a mutual goal full filling the wishes of their parants. All before what some people call the 'Me, me, me' generation. Where people are running about persueing their own objectives. So a sort of homely warmth has gone. My guess is I am more the latte generation who doesn't give a hoot at all for Torieism or Thatherism. I see total selfishness every day and it's not at all pleasant. But new generations are on the way full of more robotic AI and computerised functionality where the people have their heads focus almost entirly on a screen all day and most of the night. A sort of colder society where people walk past each other in the streets regularly for years on end and nether know any one. Yes friendships are still made and good times can still be had. Though something is lost, new will most likly be found.

[@RobVespa]

Fantastic! I adore a lot of educational films produced in or with the feel of a certain era...

[@NoosaHeads]

Desmond Briscoe was 44 when this was made. David Cain was 28 at the time and died in 2019. John Baker was 32, got sacked in 1974 due to chronic alcoholism and died aged 59 of liver cirrhosis. Delia Derbyshire - the (sort of) creator of the Dr. Who music at the Radiophonic workshop, also died of alcoholism. Maybe the job engendered a dependency on mind altering substances or maybe that kind of person migrates into the creative environment?

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

Interesting, given your comment, to hear John Baker say at 06:59 that "the idea of writing a 10 min piece without some sort of stimulous fills me with horror".

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Having to spend tedious hours cutting and splicing magnetic tape together would probably melt anybody’s brain. No surprise they resorted to chemical help. This all became much easier with digital samplers.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 Jeez, Butch Vig used to cut out individual tracks: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4aciX2amZl5oq8

[@rozzgrey801]

Delia didn't die of alcoholism, it was cancer. She said she didn't 'suffer' from alcoholism, she enjoyed every moment of it.

[@pocketsk3824]

I think this is an example of confirmation bias. Sure, lots of people in music and other arts die prematurely of substance addictions, but the vast majority don't. I worked in the music industry for several years and didn't see much of it. Also, there is some amount of people in pretty much every other profession that succumb to addiction as well. In fact, there is a higher rate of substance-addiction found in construction workers, doctors and nurses, lawyers, and several other professions than in musicians. Would you then say that people who tend to develop addictions to mind-altering substances are drawn to law or medicine or construction? Doesn't sound right, but it's more true than for the arts. Maybe it is high in the arts because there is less oversight from managers, bosses, and the like than in a typical job, but overall I don't think there is a significant relationship. It's just that these cases are the ones we hear about the most.

[@soundseeker63]

This was brilliant, informative, and funny! I wonder if Daphne had any idea at the time that she was basically laying the foundations for the future of popular music in general? Fascinating and quirky woman, who should be recognised more for her work! David Cain and his "medieval instruments that don't actually exist" had me it stitches! 😄

[@eddjordan2399]

Fantastic

[@elijahvincent985]

It's like listening to a Sega Genesis almost 20 years before it came out... crazy awesome stuff!

[@Jimbaification]

10:13 Aphex Twin vibes

[@petergivenbless900]

I wonder if the fanciful trio of Shagbutt, Minniken, and Flemish Clacket served as the inspiration for folk duo Mulligan and O'Hare's avante-garde version of 'When a Child is Born'? kzbin.info/www/bejne/hn2QkoZslLJgi7s

[@smile768]

This was during Mulligan and O'Hare's medieval experimental phase. Glad to find another like minded KZbinr.

[@DemonetisedZone]

I'm guessing this is from Open University For people outside the UK the OU was university that was available to everyone which had its lessons on tv on BBC 2 The programmes where on at unusual hours like 4am. I recorded many of them as a way to educate myself

[@kamandi1362]

No, it was from a series about music called Workshop that was shown on BBC2 on Sundays usually at 8:15pm.

[@DemonetisedZone]

@@kamandi1362 aah ok that's interesting At least I got the channel right ...well it was never going to have been ITV immediately following On The Buse was it!😏

[@CasinoWoyale]

Read the description of the clip.

[@DemonetisedZone]

​@@CasinoWoyale Imagine adding comment just to tell someone to read the clip What a pathetic pendant Merry Christmas 🎅

[@davidwright8432]

Thanks for posting. A wonderful insight into the development of electronic music as an accompaniment to tv & radio drama, in the UK. But the highlight for me was the faux 'medieval' instruments - elegantly drawn; named with Pythonic Perfection; and played with proper hesitation and doubt. Daphne Oram I knew of; not the other two. Wonder what became of them?

[@TomNeedler]

You should check out the guy who did the instrument's (David Cain) work 'The seasons' - wonderful early electronic compositions with some menacing poetry over the top. made for kids to dance to in primary schools of the 70s but youd never guess, its quite dark!

[@slehernik]

So soothing... relaxing...

[@bobz1736]

Fascinating. What a wonderful creative person Daphne was 👍

[@opraiderman904]

Watching old programs always comes with an eerie feeling that everyone who acted and produced this work are now deceased.

[@matthewharty6531]

amazing

[@Asantewarrior]

I'm glad this showed on my feed

[@j.d.4697]

I was hoping she would do some kind of electronic music dance moves...

[@janetcraft]

At the start of 10:12, the sound coming out from that "synth" sounds a bit like the sound effects and some "music" from the children's puppet show, "Space Patrol." I watched the show, (even now at my age :) and listened to the effects. It has that "industrial" sound that I like.

[@holgerk.4650]

granular synthesis made by brain and hand - cool and decades before the daw

[@Ogma3bandcamp]

Sample heaven!

[@Infinito_T]

Quick research always interesting how old someone has become. Daphne Oram 31 December 1925 - 5 January 2003 Desmond Briscoe 21 June 1925 - 7 December 2006 John Baker 12 October 1937 - 7 February 1997 (sacked by the Radiophonic Workshop in 1974 struggling with alcoholism)

[@heathconrad212]

That's what led me to write the book on the story of electronic dance music called "Let's Have a Dance Party: The Story of Electronic Dance Music"

[@kalebyoung4098]

Amazing stuff!

[@sandrodellisanti1139]

this was started electronic Music.. eh sounds, Here we go .in 1969 i was born and doin' Tracker Music since 1989..

[@wordzfailmebro]

She used to smash up the raves with her dj sets.

[@kb3ojg461]

Daphne Oram was awesome!

[@paradiddle16]

"beware high voltage. you can get a many shock even when the 'power is turned' off." Not sure about what is written in the end.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

I think it says: '... you can get a nasty shock even when the mains is turned off'

[@blatherskite3009]

You've pretty much got it. It says "BEWARE HIGH VOLTAGE You can get a nasty shock even when the mains are turned off" :) It packs a wallop even when it's turned off at the wall-plug, basically.

[@_oe_o_e_]

Did she just casually drop inventing automation?

[@Sockieknowshockey]

Amazing she is visualizing sound. Art and science nice combination!

[@bonecircuit]

Bloody Brilliant!

[@listenspeaklisten]

wow thank you so much

[@rightside]

What would rave music be had the radiophonic workshop not existed?

[@ВладимирКруглов-к9о]

I don't think it's those nice people at the BBC that we should blame for the horrors and stupidity of rave "music".

[@Emily-r1n]

I think about how it was to struggle through engineering classes at university, then I would really learn and achieve things and think that made me better. Like it was so cool to make sound come out of MATLAB myself and not flunk because I could never ask anyone for help. I did some graduate school radio frequency integrated circuits, but I wasn't a good engineer and I was never a good person for anything, then for the past several years I've just been watching youtube every day all day.........

[@Emily-r1n]

Then I watch things like this and think about what happens with technology and society and the industries, and context for my lifetime

[@Emily-r1n]

Like have you ever seen an old military veteran streaming old war movies all the time

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

Very interesting film - does anyone know how the machine works to convert a drawn waveform to an electical one? I've never seen anything like this before, hopefully there is another film somewhere explaining how it works.

[@gaoeykreg]

The drawn marks effectively block out light at precise moments as the film is played, stopping it reaching the photodiode. The photodiode converts any light it is given into electrical currents. So different drawn marks result in different currents. While this could then theoretically be used for pretty much anything, Oram of course used the currents to generate synthesised sound waves. It’s essentially a rudimentary form of sound-on-film, which found its way into cinemas during the 1970s. Others around the world, primarily in the USSR, USA and Germany, were doing similar things some time before, but Oram consolidated the various technologies into what some would call an early form of music sequencer. All in all very pioneering stuff.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

@@gaoeykreg I see what you mean, but wouldn't that require an array of diodes to scan across the t axis of the waveform in order to reproduce it as drawn? Sound on film, i thought, worked by matching the amplitude to the t axis of the film via the amount of light allowed through - not the waveform shape. The sound wave isn't actually drawn on the film in its f(t) representation, like in this video. i.e. it on a cinema film it 'looks' down along the f(t) axis rather than at the plane on which it is drawn. Hopefully that makes some sense :/

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Just put a bright light at one end, and the light that leaks through will be dimmer the further the curve is away from it.

[@tachikomakusanagi3744]

rewatching the video at 11:40, i'm guessing 'the equipment' is a TV video camera pointing up at the slide. i.e. it is raster scanning the drawn waveform and converting this to a amplitude vs time function via some impressive analogue circuitry, and sending the time signal to the oscilloscope and a loudspeaker. Makes sense actually, the BBC must obviously have been full of TV electronic engineers. Computer memory was stored in TV tubes in fact about ten years prior to this, so they could probably work wonders with processing a TV signal at that time.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@tachikomakusanagi3744 Yeah, it’s an opaque line on transparent film, not the other way round as I thought.

[@melissaferreiradasilvaboik5443]

1. I am in love with Oram's composure, the way she matches her glasses to her sweater and then the nail polish in the complementary colour, drawing the music lines on paintbrush is just 😚👌 2. my babe is extremely angry right now that fae can't have an instrument where fae could draw the music waves on paintbrush. 3. what is her dialect I love it?!?! Ms Oram is from Wiltshire but she doesn't quite sound like the West Country examples I can find (England 50 and 51 in the DEA are much more rhotic, for example). is it Wiltshire as filtered by an educated woman deliberately performing BBC RP? I can't quite put my finger on what I like about it either, but something about her vowels and the way she does plosives is basically ASMR to me, I kept being distracted from the contents of the video trying to analyse the vowel quality. 4. 7:30 #DwarfFortress autogenerated instruments be like

[@Pigeon-envelope]

Her dialect is Queen's English. It was pretty much compulsory at the BBC

[@buttershy_]

back when entertainment companies actually made educational content

[@maccagrabme]

Now the lazy B'stards at the BBC just use the same old pizzicato sample or repetitive piano chords drenched in reverb behind every single programme, or a wall of Hollywood style sampled strings drowning out the dialogue, no talent whatsoever for a dumbed down short attention span audience. Back then they had to use their imagination and create interesting content which fed the mind.

[@NeovanGoth]

Calling public broadcast an entertainment company hurts. xD

[@markszawlowski867]

This remarkable woman has been influential on the next six decades.

[@grobble7321]

60's British comedy is actual Eldritch Horror

[@tannerin]

lil ugly mane sampled the song at 5:36 for his song "discard", i had no idea!

[@KarldorisLambley]

every-time i consider the flemsish claket i start sniggering, to say nothing of the shagbut, and it's grappling irons and plogflumpen(for grommeling). A semi serious 70s bloke talking of these instrument appeals to me greatly!

[@bobjames2906]

educational TV programming. we have to go back in time to get to it. how telling......

[@andrewbutler9533]

The Shagbut is of course something that Mulligan and O'Hare would go on to play on their seminal album, Pancake Day.

[@altaporro]

I love these videos

[@magicmurphy]

Imagine your gran was as cool as Daphne Oram

[@softbytesunlimited]

She's the mother of musical tracks

[@StratsRUs]

Fantastic.

[@AntonAdelson]

Hard to believe they made these trippy psychedelic sounds without drugs! But it's probably true!

[@supme7558]

No

[@qbrlqnrlqoaqoa]

wow. legacy legend

[@lyntedrockley7295]

there is an earlier video or film in B/W somewhere of Daphne Oram talking about her work, and she describes her idea of making a multi-track machine using 35mm mag film. And now in this film we can see how it turned out. But remember this is from 1969. Walter/Wendy Carlos has already released Switched on Bach and the Well Tempered Synthesiser was a little later. Of course, a different concept, less musically experimental but an indication of how far ahead Moog was with electronics. A few years after this in the UK EMS was selling the VCS3 synthesiser. So really the story is, The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, as initiated by Oram was a playground for ingenious experimental musicians, an enclave of Heath-Robinson, cannibalised electronic test equipment and home builds. Remarkable and glorious but oblivious to the potential it could have in the hands of electronic engineers. The BBC could have produced all manner of electronic audio devices to market. But when the Yamaha keyboard synths and EMS gear arrived, they just left all that in a dusty corner and used the DX7. I witnessed it. Oram's work with 35mm film strip is predated by Norman McLaren who drew by hand the optical soundtrack to his films. But Oram is in another league with that gadget and her slides. Amazing.

[@aoifependry1029]

Wendy Carlos. Her name is Wendy. Do not deadname her. That is transphobic.

[@lyntedrockley7295]

@@aoifependry1029 Her NAME AT THE TIME was Walter. So piss off!

[@raulguzmanpereira7884]

Existe alguna version con subtitulos en español o traducida?

[@Leatherfacet]

C-coco?

[@matrixmodulator]

2:59 The keyboard rappers use in the modern "memes"

[@cashminimum]

4:30 would make a good jungle sample

[@jeez0r]

I can't stay awake lol , such nice talking desmond

[@danielsanichiban]

Splendid

[@arthur9924]

Roald Dahl meets Aphex Twin

[@AntonOlwage]

Daphne Oram invented EDM!!! THE QUEEN OF ELECTRONIC DANCE MUSIC! 😉😉😉

[@hughmnyks]

Can anybody identify the Brenell equipment behind Daphne’s head? I have a fully functional Mk 5 with same colour scheme, so only serious answers, please.

[@TrggrWarning]

Very cool

[@Induratize2]

5:36 I think Lil Ugly Mane uses this in his song Discard. Always funny running into samples from a song you hear by accident lol

[@eeyoretriple6]

10:22 turn the captions on

[@WS102]

I want to invite her over and bust out my Kraftwerk collection. Mind blown. Hold on lady, we haven't even gotten to Daft Punk yet...

[@PlantMusicLife]

7:30 I really hope real versions of these instruments are made and they perform a concert with them.

[@Nite-wl6wg]

A True Visionary

[@platovsky]

Increíble ❤ no word's ❤

[@TheOneAft]

Al igual que otros usuarios, di click a este video por la similitud física de la dama con Conan O'brien 😅 ¡Bien jugado BBC! 🤭

[@ahmadnategh6740]

The Shagbut, Minikin, and Flemish Clacket: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5LWk2Omls2mjZY

[@yuggoth69]

He is Madness' Mr Apples!!!