The Doctor Who Theme

The Emotional View

If you were to ask any established fan of the original series of Doctor Who to name one particular aspect of the programme which evokes the most vivid childhood memories, there’s a high probability that a good percentage of replies would cite the theme tune as that key memory-jogger. I myself can certainly recall the haunting music as an important part of the trepidation and build-up to watching the series in the late 1970’s, though this is of course inextricably linked to images of the title-sequence of the time which I’m sure is no surprise. As much as I could easily recognise it as a piece of music, in parallel I also interpreted it as the wailing cries of some unseen ethereal figure trapped in the time-tunnel and unable to escape. This would always set the precedent for me as I settled down to watch the latest episode, regardless of whether there happened to be any ghost-like characters in the ensuing story (as I sat on the sofa I would often have a cushion at the ready to shield my eyes from any scary moments which would naturally occur during an episode). The irony now is that this probably occurred whilst I was watching The Horns of Nimon, which may well have scared me at the time but now makes me wince (and even reach for a cushion) for very different reasons, though that’s a discussion for another time.

As much as this aspect of the theme set the chilling mood for me at the beginning of an episode, it was the iconic cliffhanger ‘scream’ which absolutely terrified me, and would sometimes make me literally jump at the shock of it. Although I still get a tingling feeling whenever I hear that same scream today, it was far more effective at the time because (a) I had no idea at what point in the proceedings it would occur having never seen the episodes before, and (b) I had no real concept of the episodes lasting 25 minutes and so could not even predict when it would happen. Finally, I also found the ‘fizzy-whizz’ sound at the very end of the closing theme rather disconcerting, but this time it was simply unnerving and mysterious rather than terrifying.

I didn’t hear any of the earlier versions of the original theme until about 10 years later when I first watched the classic BBC Video releases of Spearhead From Space, The Seeds Of Death, and eventually The Daleks. Thus, at the age of 15 I wasn’t really going to be scared by any other aspects of the music which may have been absent from the later version which I had experienced first, but nevertheless I did find the ‘sweeping’ sounds on the original arrangement rather chilling, augmented yet again by the surreal monochrome title sequence.

The Technical View

The Doctor Who theme is probably the most unique, well-known, haunting and iconic theme tune in the history of television. Enough said? Well maybe, but there’s a whole lot more to this fascinating piece of music than simply its commercial appeal.

Let’s start with the composition itself. Like most music it produces an emotional response from the listener, and particularly as the majority of the tune is in a minor key (at the risk of boring you at this early stage, it’s in the key of A Minor). Thus, the main minor section of the piece (the original version in particular) comes across as being chilling and haunting, whilst the middle-eight section is less so because it is in a major key. In this respect the later version of the original theme which dispensed with the middle-eight seemed especially haunting to me as a child as it was entirely in the minor key. The melody and subsequent arrangement of the tune is fairly simple in structure, and indeed a lot of Ron Grainer’s television theme work shares this characteristic. I’m thinking specifically of Tales of the Unexpected, Steptoe and Son and Maigret; all pieces which are relatively simplistic and somewhat repetitive.

The original version of the Doctor Who theme is notable for several reasons. Firstly, and fairly obviously, it was the basis for each of the subsequent arrangements which appeared over the decades; without it, none of those would have existed. Secondly, the way in which it was realised is amazing in its own right, as it was painstakingly put together by hand – there were no synthesisers, samplers or music-based computer software programs in the early 1960’s.

Aside from the aforementioned ‘scream’, for me the most effective part has always been the initial ‘whoop’ of the melody itself rather than the bass line or any other parts of the tune. It’s this which conjured up ethereal images in my mind as a child, and I still get that feeling when I hear it now, albeit more from a nostalgic point of view. Of course, the original version underwent several tweaks and re-arrangements itself before it was fundamentally revamped in 1980. I have a soft spot for the 1973 version which continued until the end of the decade, and as such was the first version I remember, but now having listened to the original version many times in all its guises, I would say that my favourite version is the very first which ran from An Unearthly Child to The Faceless Ones, the reason being that each constituent part of the tune build-up can be heard individually until the melody finally begins, particularly the rhythmic ‘sweeping’ sound which I still find creepy to this day. All the subsequent changes and embellishments to the original version served to blur these individual elements by way of echoes, extra sounds effects and the like, and so the unsullied arrangement of the Hartnell original puts it at the top of my list. However, the later ‘scream’ did at least give some impact to the start of the closing credits, and the ‘fizzy-whizz’ sound tacked onto the end of the closing theme at last gave some finality to the piece whilst also serving to give the theme a definite length rather than just fading out when all the necessary credits had rolled as had been the case beforehand. I must also mention the one thing I don’t like about the original arrangement; the bass line in the middle eight section sounds a bit weedy compared to the main section of the tune, but I think this is due to the very low notes of the line and the resultant resonance of the sound to our ears. As I’ve already mentioned, the success of the theme owes a lot to the accompanying title sequence. If the original sequence had featured William Hartnell trotting along a country lane waving and smiling at the audience, I’m sure the music would have been a lot less effective!

The way in which the original theme was realised (i.e. each element produced by a tone generator and the resultant recording then speeded up or slowed down to achieve the different notes) seems positively prehistoric by today’s standards, but the at the time the equipment used was the latest in electronic technology. Even so, it was the subsequent manual processing by Delia Derbyshire and her colleagues which achieved the actual end product, but of course they weren’t doing it this way just for the fun of it. It’s very easy these days (and of course, amazingly effective) to be able to knock up the most astounding pieces of electronic music using just a home PC, but at least the more primitive means used by the Radiophonic Workshop in those days was the result of practical inventiveness and lateral thinking rather than an off-the-shelf piece of computer software.

For a detailed technical guide to the Radiophonic Workshop versions of the Doctor Who theme, please visit Mark Ayres’ website.