As part of the 10 Inspirational Days we have designed and delivered in primary schools in Manchester, schoolchildren aged 9-11 have learned about the diverse original Doctor Who production team and how Delia produced the original Doctor Who theme in 1963. This  included making their own “wobbulator” – a re-creation of the DIY instrument Delia used to create the distinctive Doctor Who theme melody.

With thanks to project partners One Education Music for recruiting the schools. Thank you to all the music coordinators and school staff that have supported in delivering the days too. This project is gratefully funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

About the wobbulator

The wobbulator was the nickname for a piece of engineering equipment in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It was a beat frequency oscillator manufactured by the Danish engineering and electronics company Brüel and Kjaer. The machine was designed to assess the acoustics of spaces and studios and designed for electrical engineers to be able to test equipment. However, the inventive and ever resourceful BBC Radiophonic Workshop members uncovered its creative musical potential and turned it into a musical instrument.

It was essentially a basic synthesiser with 1 oscillator, which meant you could select a frequency and then manipulate the modulation of said frequency. It was what we would probably now call an LFO – a low frequency oscillator. As the school children guessed from the name, it was a machine that allowed you to wobble frequencies and therefore produce a myriad of sounds. Delia used the wobbulator to produce some of the low frequency sounds accompanying the melody and the rumbling ‘wind bubble’ at the end of the theme tune. 

We hoped it would be fun for kids to be able to make their own wobbulators and creative technologist Nina Richards built us a bespoke DIY solderless circuit kit that the kids could assemble and experiment with. Nina did this adapting the useful open source code provided by the BBC web audio protoyping project using a Raspberry Pico micocontroller device and a number of toggle switches and potentiometers. The kids worked in small teams to assemble the kit, experiment with the sounds they can make and then try and re-create the first 3 notes of the Doctor Who theme. The faces lit up with delight once that green light came on. And they seemed to love exploring the sonorities they could produce. 

What the kids thought:

“I enjoyed working with my team mates to make sounds.”

“I enjoyed switching the sounds and making different ones.”

“I liked putting it together and turning the dials.”

“This charity has actually done something good. You’re going into schools and teaching us what she [Delia] did, I think it’s actually a very good experience for us.”