Take away the melody line and the figurations around it and you’ve got the basic rhythm heard in the PM item. As I said in my first post, once all those extra elements are mixed in the rhythm track loses much of its impact - but that’s the one! Many thanks for the post and helping us confirm that the EMS album track uses the same elements as those on the reel in the archive.
AB,
David

Re: the tape being labelled as a ‘dance track’ or intended for people to dance to - as Peter says, that almost certainly wasn’t the case at all - we’re pretty certain that the track was originally for use in a BBC production.

Think of ‘Noah’s Dance’ as something like ‘Anitra’s Dance’ from Peer Gynt - a dance for a particular character in a drama - something that the *character* might dance to (or represent their dance - actual or otherwise) but not meant in the sense that we understand ‘dance music’ today (or back in the late 60s/early 70s for that matter).

In terms of Delia and synthesizers - you’re absolutely right that she wasn’t overly-fond of them but she did use them - I’d urge you to check out the Electrosonic album that she did for KPM with Brian Hodgson and Don Harper, under her pseudonym of Li De la Russe - this album of library music stems from 1972 and is fully synthesized - I promise you, when you listen to a track like ‘Computermatic’, the rhythm track of ‘Noah’s Dance’ will not sound so impossible to you anymore!

The album was re-released a couple of years back as a limited run, so is sold out again alas, but there are details about it here:

http://www.moviegrooves.com/shop/electrosonickpmderbyshire.htm

Hope that helps put her music and the Noah rhythm more in context for you - I’m sure there are people on the forum who have heard Electrosonic and can confirm that I’m not making the above up to fob you off!
All best,
David

PS - thanks too to ringroad for the info on the EMS album - I’m hoping to hear a copy of it in the near future so your post was really encouraging!

I’ve kept it really short hoping that it’s ok to quote it - if anyone from Delia’s estate want me to remove it I’ll do it as soon as..

Yeah, I saw that but haven’t been able to find any sources that I could hear it from.

So you’ve heard it then and think that it compares to the snippet on the BBC site? Well, that might settle things then. It would be great if you could post a little bit of it somewhere.

One of the things that may be throwing me off, is that the rhythm snippet is just a submix, being focused on all by itself. David did say that heard in the context of the whole mix, it is vary understated. Perhaps if I heard the final mix, I wouldn’t be so skeptical.

I’ve never had my sweaty paws on a VCS3, but given it has a noise generator, ring mod, and 3 oscillators, I’d guess that it would be well within its capabilities.

The version of the track I have is about 54 seconds long, and is a sweet little thing, starting out with some analogue beats similar to that in the “noah’s dance rh” clip, before getting subsumed in a piccolo melody.

Just doing a quick tap tempo thing with bpmWidget in Dashboard suggests they’re of similar tempos, somewhere around 155bpm.

If you really want to debate the subject, how about presenting some facts, instead of just personal attacks and meaningless “straw man” arguments?

Howdy: the Radiophonic Workshop did a whole bunch of programmatic pieces, theatrical pieces, etc. I don’t think Derbyshire was intending to release this to the dance halls. It’s just a description.

Angstrom: I recognize you’re frustrated, but please, let’s be civil to fellow commenters, whatever we happen to think of their opinions. Thanks.