Delia Derbyshire shows the Guardian around the BBCs groundbreaking studio for electronic music
It struck me immediately as the contemporary equivalent of an alchemists kitchen, to my lay eye the BBCs radiophonic workshop in Maida Vale took shape as an esoteric, slightly scary clutter of instruments, some quite dusty, others unintelligibly new, with fussy, jiggling dials, and a running commentary of gulping noises, and bumps, and whinnies.
I was at the workshop primarily to meet its only woman member, Delia Derbyshire. While she vanished to unfile some printed material which, she promised, would explain the set-up with suitable simplicity, I had a chance to look over some of the equipment. A set of glass containers reminded me of the medieval water-clock I once saw in a cathedral. Near them stood a rather pretty box with perpetually changing numbers chasing each other across its face, and farther over was something they swore was called a wobulator. I didnt know whether to laugh politely or to believe it. Its job, I learned, was to feed frequencies into the blue box, so that it could count them.
Continue reading...
by Kirsten Cubitt via Electronic music | The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment