2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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created_at: '2016-01-29T07:21:30.000Z'
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title: 'Daphne Oram: Portrait of an electronic music pioneer (2008)'
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url: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/01/daphne.oram.remembered
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author: flannery
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points: 45
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 8
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1454052090
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_flannery
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- story_10993961
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objectID: '10993961'
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2018-06-08 12:05:27 +00:00
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year: 2008
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2018-02-23 18:58:03 +00:00
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---
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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As the BBC Radiophonic Workshop celebrates its 50th anniversary, we pay
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tribute to the life and legacy of its co-founder Daphne Oram, one of the
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pioneers of British electronic music
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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There are many histories of electronic music. Some focus on the
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avant-garde studios active in Europe, America, Russia and the old
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eastern bloc countries, and usually mention the work of Karlheinz
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Stockhausen, Pierre Schaeffer, Luciano Berio, John Cage and others.
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There are other stories that focus on popular music: Kraftwerk, the
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Human League, Depeche Mode and Aphex Twin. And there are more esoteric
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studies that mention Raymond Scott, Louis and Bebe Barron, Tom Dissevelt
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and Kid Baltan. Yet, however hard you look into the history of
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electronic music, there is one name you'll struggle to find – that of
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Daphne Oram.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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Oram was one of the first British composers to produce electronic sound,
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a pioneer of what became "musique concrete" – music made with sounds
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recorded on tape, the ancestor of today's electronic music. Her story
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makes for fascinating reading. She was born in 1925 when Britain was
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between two world wars. She was extremely bright, and studied music and
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electronics – unusual at the time not only because electronics was an
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exciting new industry, but also because it was a man's world.
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2018-02-23 18:19:40 +00:00
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2018-03-03 09:35:28 +00:00
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She went on to join the [BBC](https://www.theguardian.com/media/bbc),
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and, while many of the corporation's male staff were away fighting in
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the second world war, she became a balancing engineer, mixing the sounds
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captured by microphones at classical music concerts. In those days,
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nearly all programmes went out live because recording was extremely
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cumbersome and expensive. Tape hadn't been invented, and cheap computers
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were half a century away.
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Yet when tape did come along, in the early 1950s, Oram was quick to
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realise that it could be used not simply for recording existing sounds,
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but for composing a new kind of music. Not the music of instruments,
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notes and tunes, but the music of ordinary, everyday sound.
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After Oram had finished her day's work, and everyone had gone home, she
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trundled tape recorders the size of industrial gas cookers from empty
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studios, and gathered them to experiment late into the night. She
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recorded sounds on to tape, and then cut, spliced and looped them;
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slowed them down, sped them up, played them backwards. It must have been
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like working in a laboratory, or inventing new colours – a new world
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almost impossible to imagine now.
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Unfortunately – perhaps inevitably – nobody at the BBC was interested.
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Still Oram kept going. She badgered senior figures to set up a
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department producing experimental sound works, only to be told that the
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BBC had several orchestras capable of producing all the sounds that were
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needed.
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Eventually, however, a committee looking into "Electrophonic Effects"
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was set up, and Oram shared the results of her experiments. But still
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they didn't want her to be involved. "They wanted my work," she later
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said, "but they didn't want me." So she teamed up with another recording
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engineer, Desmond Briscoe, and in 1958, 16 years after Oram first joined
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the BBC, the pair were given a spare room in the Maida Vale studios,
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along with some out-of-date equipment, and left alone to get on with it.
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To avoid complications with the orchestras, the Musicians' Union and the
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BBC music departments, they had to avoid the word "music" entirely, so
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they called the project something else. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was
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born.
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Within a few months of founding one of the most famous music studios in
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the world, however, Oram left. There was a clash of ambitions. She
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wanted to develop an experimental institution, like those in Paris,
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Cologne and Milan, producing electro-acoustic music by international
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avant-garde composers of the day. The BBC, yet again, had other ideas:
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it wanted a sound-effects factory producing jingles for schools
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programmes and radio drama.
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So Oram set up on her own in a deserted oast house in Kent. Here she
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built an astonishing contraption, the "Oramics" machine, which produced
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pure electronic sound. It was about the size of a chest of drawers and
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was constructed from metal shelving materials. Electric motors pulled
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eight parallel tracks of clear 35mm film stock across scanners that
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operated like TV sets in reverse. On the film she drew curving black
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lines, squiggles and dots, all converted into sound. It looked and
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sounded strikingly modern.
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Although she was rumoured to have been visited by members of the
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Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who, as well as the avant garde of
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the day, Oram was bypassed by the music establishment – at least until
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now. Her archive is at last being catalogued and cherished at Goldsmiths
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College in London. Recently, the South Bank Centre devoted a whole day
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to her work. A double CD has been released, and very soon a digital
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version of the Oramics machine will be available online. We're 40 years
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too late, but it seems we might finally catch up with the astonishing
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life and legacy of Daphne Oram.
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\- Wee Have Also Sound-Houses, focusing on the life and work of Daphne
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Oram, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 this Sunday, 3 August at 9.45pm
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