How a Well-Designed Water Slide Is Like a Great Song

Whether it’s just a small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world or the summer of ‘69, a great song is known to get stuck in your head. As a drummer, I have spent countless hours with beats and rhythms and have discovered that while every song may have its unique vibrations, they all have a similar structure with lyrics, accompaniments, and a story. It is through my time in business development for WhiteWater that I have learned, there may be more similarities than meets the eye between music and water slides. They both can create a sudden surge of emotions and are highly incentive.

Lyrics

Perhaps the most recognizable portion of a song is the lyrics. What’s fun about lyrics is that they can be repeated, like in the chorus of a song, or changed from section to section. In a water slide, lyrics are like the sensations of the ride. One of the most popular water slides in the world, the Master Blaster, is like a song’s chorus where lyrics are repeated, and they bring this insane riff again but deeper and deeper. This water coaster uses a series of uphill sensations to extend the length of the ride and propels you against gravity. On the other hand, a song also changes the lyrics to create verses. This is like a fusion water slide, where the sensations differ from section to section. To keep riders guessing about what comes next, a fusion water slide might start off with a Master Blaster component, but then end with a plunge before racing up the zero-gravity wall of a Boomerango, or finish with the Manta with multiple thrilling oscillations.

Story

Every song tells a story. This can be as simple or as detailed as the songwriter wants it to be, like a long-lost love who isn’t coming back, or a car not starting. Both the music and the words of a song tell the audience a story. Theming has the same effect in a water park. Blending in with a resort or helping to take the guests on a journey into another world, theming can be as simple or as detailed as a park wants it to be. For example, Studio City Water Park, one of our latest projects in Asia, used proprietary metallic paint finishes to make their slides look metallic to help tell the story of their casino. Similarly, Parque Warner Beach in Spain incorporated superheroes to take guests into the world of DC comic book characters.

Accompaniment

After the lyrics and the story have been written, the song builds with the melody and the accompaniment. Just under the melody, the accompaniment is the addition or subtraction of instruments to enhance the context and structure of the song. Queen does this in Bohemian Rhapsody when they remove the instruments completely from the song to enhance its impact. Did you know water slides can do the same thing? You can strip things back to enhance the structure, like playing with opening and closing the fiberglass on an Open & Enclosed slide to surprise guests with dark and light sensations or add “instruments” in the form of colour by using AquaLucent. Creating pops of light in the fiberglass, AquaLucent adds surprise bursts of colour to unveil the drops, twists, and turns that lie ahead in a slide path, heightening sensations. And like how a good song ends for me as drummer with a satisfying wave of firing cymbals and thundering strokes, we land and glide out smoothly in our shut-down lanes.

Sound like music to your ears?

You might not land on the Billboard Top 100, but a well-designed water slide is sure to surprise and delight guests while helping you to increase revenue. If you’re interested in learning more about our process in designing our rockstar water slides, visit www.whitewaterwest.com or shoot me an email at [email protected] to get started.?