The theme music to iconic British sci-fi TV show Doctor Who has been immortalized by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive. Wait? What? Why is m

Doctor Who theme added to national sound archive to honor innovation, longevity

submited by

Style Pass

2024-12-12 02:30:05

The theme music to iconic British sci-fi TV show Doctor Who has been immortalized by Australia's National Film and Sound Archive.

Wait? What? Why is music from the UK's most substantial contribution to broadcast sci-fi worthy of inclusion in an Australian archive?

"While the theme for the long-running BBC series, with its otherworldly pulsing bassline, was recorded by English musician Delia Derbyshire, it was written by Australian composer Ron Grainer," the NFSA explained, before going on to remind us all that the theme is thought to have been the first piece of electronic music used as a TV theme – and remains in use to this day, albeit modernized.

"Each note was painstakingly realized using musique concrète techniques – cutting, splicing, and manipulating analog tape recordings of white noise, a test-tone oscillator, and a single plucked string," NFSA noted in its account of the tune's creation.

That description accords with one The Register published in 2010, when we brought readers news that the BBC planned to air a previously un-aired interview with Delia Derbyshire.