The Oramics Machine

I have an obsession with machines that go "Ping!" Ever since the first heard Switched on Bach album by Wendy Carlos, I've been interested in synthesizers, electronic devices for sculpting sound. Through my years of study, many names have popped up: Robert Moog, Terry Riley, Karlheinz Stockhausen. But recently one in particular has been on my mind.

Daphne Oram was one of the founders of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. They're the folks who did the Dr. Who theme music (and many others). Oram, however, has often been omitted from accounts of the Workshop, and passed away in 2003 leaving little evidence of her life's work. Slowly, but surely, that has changed, and an exhibition at The Science Museum in London has recently further revealed her visionary understanding of how music would be made in the future.

The exhibit offers information on her life and work and the device she invented to make music, The Oramics Machine. Oram had adapted the process by which sound was mated film to create music. She drew squiggly lines on film to control pitch, volume and other parameters and the machine "read" those lines and turned them into sound.

Here is a video about the rediscovery of this device and work to restore it for the exhibit.



Here is a link to the Apple store. They have an Oramics Machine app. I have it and it's pretty cool.