[1][2] Dickinson was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, and studied organ at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he was a student of Philip Radcliffe.
[3] In 1958 he became a student at the Juilliard School in New York City, and studied with Bernard Wagenaar, and encountered the works of experimental composers such as Cowell, Cage, and Edgard Varèse.
Returning to England in 1962, he established courses in improvisation and experimental music at the College of St. Mark and St. John, Chelsea.
[4] As a pianist, he often performed works by Charles Ives with his sister, mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson, reflecting his affinity for that composer.
In 1980, Dickinson became a founding member of the Association of Professional Composers and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts a year later.
[7] His musical compositions include experimental and aleatoric elements, and are compared to works by Stravinsky, Ives and Satie.
He wrote a series of articles on improvisation in 1964, and more recently has discussed postmodernism, coining the term 'style modulation' to describe the weaving together of serious and popular or past and present music.