Project Overview

Storytelling with Sound

Through four interactive music stands surrounding images of Walt, playful creative activities reveal the various ways Disney employed sound and music in his animated features.

Following his pioneering success synchronizing sound with animation, Walt Disney was committed to the importance of the role sound and music played in storytelling. Through four different game-like activities, visitors can experience how Disney used tempos, moods, themes, and lyrics to help tell his stories. A central monolithic screen features animated images of Walt working side-by-side with animators and composers. At any one of the four stands surrounding Walt visitors can browse the four sheet music covers to pick one of the activities. Visitors manipulate a metronome to match storyboard sequences with tempos in the “Step in Time” activity, and pick records to match musical themes with characters in “How Do You Do?” In “Fun With Music” visitors match the mood of an animated pencil-sketch scene from Dumbo with the appropriate melody, and they listen to the words and music of “Love Is a Song” to decide which drawings correspond with the story the song tells.