![]() In some cases, however, they achieve a level of refinement that provides a visual analysis of the music as it unfolds, forming what I call an analytical light show. Light shows at contemporary rock concerts create an immersive, multi-sensory experience. Accompanying and interpreting this rotation, the lights rhythmically illuminate each sonic component, and highlight the catch in the gears, showing the audience both the riff’s turning and its stopping. Meshuggah opens their set with “Clockworks.” The song’s beginning conjures the turning of gears-precise, mechanical, even monotonous, yet with a periodic “catch,” before the turning resumes again. With the attack of the guitars, sixteen focused light beams slice the darkness, backlighting the performers and imprinting the song’s rhythms on the audience’s retinas. The festival tent is dark as the drummer counts in. Beyond the confines of metal culture, I study the analytical light show as an expression of vernacular musical analysis that combines specific analytical and technical expertise with the intuitive, embodied knowledge that experienced music listeners possess.Ĭopyright © 2021 Society for Music Theory ![]() By presenting analysis and performance simultaneously and as each other, Meshuggah combines technical virtuosity with rock authenticity, and provides another example of what I have called “coercive synesthesia” (Lucas 2014), as the lighting becomes an inextricable part of the musical experience. Through this lighting, spatial and bodily metaphors of musical movement-high and low, moving and holding still-are transmuted into visual representation. These analytical light shows provide a three-dimensional visual score that dramatizes rhythms while guiding listeners through each riff. Meticulous use of color, brightness, directionality, placement pattern, and beam movement provide additional information about gesture, articulation, and pitch. Meshuggah’s light shows, created by lighting designer Edvard Hansson, are exhaustively synchronized to the rhythmic patterns of the guitars and drums. This paper presents a case study of what I call the analytical light show, by examining how the intricate light shows of extreme metal band Meshuggah contribute an interpretive layer that not only promotes multi-sensory engagement, but also actively guides listeners through songs’ formal structures. In their most sophisticated forms, however, they provide a visual analysis of the music as it unfolds. KEYWORDS: rhythm, metal, performance analysis, music and the visual, multimodality, vernacular analysisĪBSTRACT: Light shows at contemporary rock concerts generally create an immersive, multi-sensory experience.
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