50 years ago on this very day I was with Professor Eric Laithwaite at the Royal Institution in London. We were recording a section of the 1974 Christmas Lectures Programme Number 3 “Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow”. I’ve covered what we did in a previous 2017 post, but this time I’ve dug deep into my own archive for an extra gem that has never been heard before. I’ve also found the original tape that is on the Revox tape-recorder seen over on the left hand side so that we can hear it a little better. I say better, in fact that tape is actually falling apart, with the back-coating peeling off the plastic tape, it was a nightmare to transfer.
I won’t go back over what I’ve already written in that previous post but will fill a few more details into what happened these 50 years ago. The tape that was commissioned from the BBC Radiophonics Workshop contained a huge amount of stuff that we never did use. I think the Producer of the Christmas Lectures simply gave them a brief to come up with a load of stuff featuring sounds that were backwards. They seemed to go overboard with speech at various speeds forwards and backwards and it was not what we really needed, so was not used. The one track from them that we did use was a Palindromic music sequence where, in the live lecture, I pointed out where the backwards and forwards started and stopped. Interestingly, although the sections you can hear below are technically forwards and backwards in truth they are not. The Radiophonics Workshop simply created the music and ran the notes forward, but when in “reverse” it’s the musical notes played in a reverse order not actually the sound backwards.
When it came to my “Happy Christmas” recording, that was truly me speaking the sounds that I heard backwards. I had to mimic my original sound recording when I heard the words coming out backwards. This is the difference with the Radiophonics music recording.
Both Professor Laithwaite and I had some extra fun with the whole speaking backwards experiment. In the week leading up to the actual lectures we had a visit from BBC Radio 2 host John Dunn (1934-2004). He had a daily show called Late Night Extra and he wanted to feature what was about to happen during lecture 3. I stayed up very late on the night of the broadcast and captured it for posterity. I doubt many will have already heard it.
The lecture was broadcast on BBC 2 on New Year’s Eve, December 31st 1974. College was actually open and running that day, so I stayed late for the transmission which I recorded onto videotape. I subsequently got my own DVD copy from the BBC’s original master videotape which is still held in their archives. Incidentally, I was also involved with the original 1966 series that Eric Laithwaite presented called “The Engineer in Wonderland”. Those tapes were sadly wiped by the BBC but in this photo you’ll see me indicated over on the right hand side.
Here I am with Professor Eric Laithwaite about to play my backwards recording.
From the original master audio tape here I am with that recording, but this time I’m letting you hear what it sounded like when it was recorded and before then being played backwards to come out forwards (are you still with me?) Keep an eye on the caption at the top where you can see when it changes direction.
This is the original Radiophonics recording of their “Palindromic” music.
John Dunn from BBC Radio 2 Late Night Extra on 19 December 1974.
Colin Grimshaw 28 December 2024