Hi! I’m a 4th-year PhD in Music Theory and Cognition at Northwestern, and I research Disney music.
I’ll post updates about my research here (studies, data, presentations, publications, etc.), but you can also get updates by email:
News
Presentations
If You Give a Mouse a Melody: In Search of the Disney Sound
Presentation at the Music Cognition Interest Group at the Joint Meeting of the American Musicological Society and Society for Music Theory November 5–9, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In a study asking 90 participants to determine whether a song excerpt is from Disney or not, participants were able to correctly identify Disney versus non-Disney significantly greater than chance. Excerpts were chosen so that participants would not be able to complete the task from memory, so songs that were recorded but did not make it into the final films were included for the Disney excerpts. Non-Disney excerpts were chosen from other animated musicals, live-action musicals, and other children’s media with the intention of sounding similar to Disney. Participant success points toward a unique Disney sound that transcends the variety of styles that each animated film uses, which has implications for the relationship between genre and style and broader questions of cognitive categories. Some participants were able to articulate what sonic elements helped them make their decisions, and others simply relied on “vibes” or the “sound of magic.”
View the slides and paper here: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/SFNZ2
Studies
Is It Disney?
STU00223432, February 2025
Status: Complete
Data shared in the presentation above!
