Peter Howell (born 1949) is a musician and composer. He is best known for his work on ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' as a member of the

BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering work in electroni ...

. Howell's musical career began in the late 1960s working with John Ferdinando in various

psychedelic folk Psychedelic folk (sometimes acid folk or freak folk) is a loosely defined form of psychedelic music, psychedelia that originated in the 1960s. It retains the largely acoustic instrumentation of contemporary folk music, folk, but adds musical el ...

bands including Agincourt and Ithaca. Howell and Ferdinando recorded five albums before Howell became a member of the Radiophonic Workshop, with which he would remain associated until 1997.

''Doctor Who''

His work on ''Doctor Who'' began in 1975 when he provided some accompanying incidental music for ''

Revenge of the Cybermen ''Revenge of the Cybermen'' is the fifth and final serial of the 12th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 19 April to 10 May 1975. It was the first ...

'' and special sound for ''

Planet of Evil ''Planet of Evil'' is the second serial of the 13th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 27 September to 18 October 1975. The serial is set on and ab ...

''. When

John Nathan-Turner John Nathan-Turner (''né'' Turner; 12 August 1947 – 1 May 2002) was an English television producer. He was the ninth producer of the long-running BBC science fiction series ''Doctor Who''. He was also the final producer of the series' first ...

became producer of ''Doctor Who'' in 1980, he decided that the music needed to be updated and commissioned Howell to provide a new arrangement of the ''Doctor Who'' theme to accompany a new title sequence. Whereas the original arrangement of the theme (written by

Ron Grainer Ronald Erle Grainer (11 August 1922 – 21 February 1981) was an Australian composer who worked for most of his professional career in the United Kingdom. He is mostly remembered for his television and film score music, especially the theme mus ...

) had been realised by

Delia Derbyshire Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She carried out notable work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including her electronic arrangement of the theme ...

(and, originally, assisted by

Dick Mills Dick Mills (born 1936) is a British sound engineer, specialising in electronic sound effects which he produced at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Mills was one of the original staff at the Radiophonic Workshop, joining in 1958 as a technical as ...

) using

musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic, ...

techniques, Howell arranged Grainer's theme on

analogue synthesiser An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of ...

s - primarily using a

Yamaha CS-80 The Yamaha CS-80 is an analog synthesizer released in 1977. It supports true 8-voice polyphony, with two independent synthesizer layers per voice each with its own set of front panel controls, in addition to a number of hardwired preset voice set ...

, an ARP Odyssey Mk3 and a

Roland Jupiter-4 The Roland Jupiter-4 (JP-4) was an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1978 and 1981. It was notable as the company's first self-contained polyphonic synthesizer, and for employing digital control of analog ci ...

. Howell's new arrangement first appeared in 1980 on ''

The Leisure Hive ''The Leisure Hive'' is the first serial of the Doctor Who (season 18), 18th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC One, BBC1 from 30 August to 20 September 198 ...

'', for which Howell had also recorded the incidental score, and was used throughout

Tom Baker Thomas Stewart Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor and writer. He is well known for his portrayal of the Fourth Doctor, fourth incarnation of The Doctor (Doctor Who), the Doctor in the science fiction television series ''Doctor Wh ...

's final season on the programme as well as

Peter Davison Peter Malcolm Gordon Moffett (born 13 April 1951), known professionally as Peter Davison, is an English actor with many credits in television dramas and sitcoms. He made his television acting debut in 1975 and became famous in 1978 as Tristan ...

's tenure as the Doctor and

Colin Baker Colin Baker (born 8 June 1943) is an English actor who played Paul Merroney in the BBC drama series '' The Brothers'' from 1974 to 1976 and the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series '' Doctor ...

's first season. Between 1980 and 1985 Howell also provided incidental music for ten stories of ''Doctor Who''. In 1986, Nathan-Turner commissioned a new theme arrangement by

Dominic Glynn Dominic Francis Glynn (born 27 September 1960 in Cuckfield, Sussex) is an English electronic composer. Glynn is a prolific composer of music for television and film. His work includes the arrangement of the ''Doctor Who'' theme music which se ...

, ending Howell's association with Doctor Who on television. Since 2013 he has been part of the Radiophonic Workshop Band, touring the UK and abroad with Radiophonic archivist

Mark Ayres Mark Ayres is an electronic musician, composer and audio engineer. Ayres studied music and electronics at Keele University. He also worked as a sound engineer at TV-am between 1982 and 1987. As a television composer, he became known for providi ...

and other former members of the Workshop.

Other work

Aside from ''Doctor Who'', Howell's Radiophonic Workshop work includes an album of original recordings in 1978 entitled '' Through A Glass Darkly'' (credited to Peter Howell & The Radiophonic Workshop) and "Greenwich Chorus", a piece which accompanied an episode of

Jonathan Miller Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1 ...

's popular ''The Body in Question'' which was controversial at the time for its use of the

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

. Howell composed the theme tunes to '' The Machine that Changed the World (1992)''/''The Dream Machine (UK)'', a 5-part television series on the history of the electronic digital computer, to Robert Hughes' 1979-80 8-part series on Modern art ('' The Shock of the New''), and to the ''Badger Girl'' and ''Spywatch'' series of the long-running

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

''Doctor Who''

Other work

Most recently

References

External links