Davidson Professor Strikes a Chord With Pioneering Pinball Research
December 8, 2025
Professor Neil Lerner, the J. Estes Millner Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Film, Media, and Digital Studies, is proving that exciting, high-impact research can be found in the most unexpected places—like the pulsing, digital heart of a pinball machine.
Lerner, a longtime scholar of video game music who taught the college’s first course focused on video games back in 2006, is now dedicating his expertise to exploring the untold history of music composed for pinball. This area of inquiry will shed light on composers who were employed by pinball companies as well as bring attention to their original imaginative creations they made to accompany pinball games.
On the Road
This fall, Professor Lerner took his groundbreaking work on the road, sharing his findings with both pinball hobbyists and other scholars. experts and academics. He presented at the Pinball Expo in Chicago, one of the most significant annual gatherings for the pinball community. He also delivered an invited lecture at UNC-Greensboro as part of their Irna Priore Music and Culture Lecture Series.
His passion for this topic has made its way into his Davidson classes, enriching the student experience in courses such as “Video Game Music, “Minimalism/Postminimalism,” and the senior seminar in music.
New Research Published
Lerner's essay, “Sounds and Music in Pinball's Transition from Electromechanical to Solid State Machines, 1975-1982,” was recently published in the academic volume Global Histories of Video Game Music Technology (Brepols). This essay follows the publication of last year’s article in the Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound, “A History of Early U.S. Pinball Sound, 1871-1939.” Both of these are among the first scholarly studies of pinball sound and music, and they will form part of his larger project, which is an entire book that will tell the story of pinball and its music.
Lerner’s work demonstrates how Davidson faculty are continually redefining their fields, creating new knowledge and engaging students in research that spans the traditional and the cutting-edge.
