Information on Theme Park Music

[Waffleman]

For the dissertation part of my Creative Music Technology degree I'd love to write about music in theme parks, but I'm not sure on how much reputable information there is on the topic. If anybody knows of any books, or even websites, articles, etc on this kind of thing then I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dj-fireball999]

musicofmerlin.com is a good source for the music used at Towers, Chessie and Thorpe. I'm not sure whether there's much information about the music used itself, but at least they're great quality tracks.

 

[Mike]

I'm not sure how useful it would be about music in theme parks, but The Global Theme Park Industry by Salvador Anton Clave is usually decent for any theme park-related stuff.

"Whole New Worlds": Music and the Disney Theme Park Experience by Charles Carson also looks like a very good read for music's role in theme parks.
Ethnomusicology Forum, 2004, Vol.13(2), pp.228-235

In this paper, I explore some of the ways in which music operates in the Disney theme park experience.
In the context of Walt Disney World, my belief is that music functions in at least three
specific capacities: 1) music links current Disney experiences to (often romanticized)
experiences of the past through nostalgia; 2) music defines the boundaries which separate
‘‘same’’ from ‘‘other’’ in terms of both geography and, ultimately, identity; 3) and music
serves as an index for the ‘‘Disney Experience’’ in general; an experience which itself is
built upon a commixture of the aforementioned modes of identity and nostalgia.

In the same journal, the very next article is called "Circumnavigation with a Difference? Music, Representation and the Disney Experience: It's a Small, Small World" by Laudan Nooshin. P236-251

This article explores the relationships of power embedded within the Small World ride and addresses a number of questions relating to the politics of cultural representation and specifically to the role of music in the ride

That's all I could find with a quick search really, but hope this helps you (if you didn't find these articles already!). I'd actually be surprised if there's anything but Disney-related articles really.

 

[Nic]

Someone once went to the effort of doing an email interview with the bloke who wrote the AWESOME music for Hex at Alton Towers. You can read it here (page 4) http://www.coasterforce.com/ontrack/OnTrackMay10.pdf

Hopefully it'll be of interest, even if it's not any help for your dissertation!

Edit: Their website is a bit crap, but these guys have done some stuff for Merlin over the years: http://www.pitstopproductions.co.uk/index.html Pretty sure they did the relatively recent batch of "adventurer" music for Chessie.