Ron Grainer- Musical Magician

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Ron Grainer. This guy was one of the best musicians who produced theme musics for various TV shows in the '60's. While he worked in Britain, he was actually an Australian, and a few of my relatives actually knew him. On a whim, I thought I'd do this tribute to a master musician, and put up a poll for the most popular Ron Grainer theme song.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpxLRHa2Efs[/youtube]

Doctor Who. The iconic theme was composed by Ron Grainer, and was realised by Delia Derbyshire, and he was so impressed with the result, he offered her half the royalties, which she regrettably could not accept because of BBC policy. It was also one of the first electronic theme musics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjLZGTQz96g[/youtube]

Steptoe and Son. The famous British sitcom's distinctive theme was another Ron Grainer theme.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14eUKogPF7s[/youtube]

The Prisoner. An enigmatic series, with a racy theme tune.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCvzJbX1jro[/youtube]

Tales of the Unexpected. This show's theme was also written by Ron Grainer.

Others include Maigret, Paul Temple, That Was the Week That Was, and Man in a Suitcase. However, I haven't found Maigret on YouTube, and the others are a bit obscure, so they're not in the poll.

Oh, and just to get my opinion out of the way, my favourite is Doctor Who, followed by The Prisoner.

I voted before you did, Quatermass. "The Prisoner" has to win. I have never taped "Doctor Who". I have all of "The Prisoner", plus extra bits, on tape, except for one episode, which I watched as I taped it, so I could edit out the adverts. I was somewhat surprised, a year later, to find a party political broadcast, with bits missing. I had failed to record the correct channel.

I can't help but laugh. Some of my relatives in Scotland tried taping Torchwood for me, but on one episode, they screwed up. While the visuals were Torchwood, the actual sound appeared to be for a comedy program on another channel.

The Prisoner theme is good, but you gotta love the Doctor Who theme, an electronic theme music created before synthesisers....

I voted Doctor Who it was the first of its kind it was experiemental when they did it I have the very first ever Doctor Who on DVD and it talks about how they made the theme tune

Yeah. They almost literally assembled it note by note.

Delia Derbyshire did the work on that, and since synthesizers (in the modern sense) did not exist - even the Moog was not for many many more years - she DID assemble it note-by-note. Well, dial-by-dial. The tape she and the others at the Radiophonics Workshop developed ended up being so big it ran out one door, down a corridor, and in another door to get back to the reel-to-reel.

I listened to the high-definition recording on the 30 years CD, and discovered that if you turn up the very low bass, there is an additional layer to the music that is not normally audible.

I wonder if Grainer, Derbyshire, or any of the others, were ever aware of it.

Oh. I know that the swoops were assembled note-by-note, but I forgot whether the bassline was. I knew it was created by a plucked guitar string...