DERBYSHIRE SOUNDS

Derbyshire’s Hack ethos epitomized her innovative approach to sound manipulation and composition. She pushed the boundaries of technology, often “hacking” or repurposing existing equipment to achieve new and unconventional sounds. 

To ‘Make noise like Delia’, I used simple electronics, resistors, capacitors and a battery input to create a square audio wave; the circuit is assembled on a breadboard.  By attaching a light-senor I was able to create a light-sensitive synth. Through an iterative process, swapping out different resistors and capacitors, we were able to ‘shape sound’.

‘But those basic sounds aren’t really interesting in their raw state like this to make them a value for a musical piece we have to shape them and mold them but using all of these we can build up any sound we can possibly imagine’ – Derbyshire, 1965 (BBC Archive, 2022).