Latin America. I've been to a lot of great gigs so far in my life and they've all been magnificent for different reasons. MxPx, for example, was my favorite band when I was a teenager and it was just great when Mike Herrera appeared in the flesh on stage. And Dashboard Confessional at the moment that Chris Carrabba said a single word the audience shouted incessantly.
But my favorite gigs weren't for the band or the great memories around the shows, but it's the gigs where the experience itself was unlike any other.
Now, the ability to fully articulate the experience of a concert may allude, but scientists have studied the ways in which music and light affect us, and have discovered that some of the reasons why it happens. For example, when the feeling of "chills" occurs when listening to music, it is actually a reaction called "shudders" that occurs when dopamine floods the body. The fact that a concept as abstract as music can cause the brain to release dopamine is quite unique in human biology (the usual causes are physical exertions that have a direct survival value such as food or exercise).
In fact, in a recent study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience they saw these "shudders" and why music provokes this reaction. In the study, they found that people who had these emotions toward music had more nerve fibers in the brain that connect the "auditory cortex" to the "anterior insular cortex." In simple terms, this means they had more connections between sound and the brain's emotional processing.
In a recent interview with The Guardian, neuroscientist Robert Zatorre of McGill University explained: "This interaction between the auditory and emotional systems is the basis for musical pleasure. People who receive more than one 'emotion' directly from the music have a stronger connection to it." Matthew Sachs, a PhD student who conducted the study, added: "Music clearly has a direct link to the way our brains are designed." Studies have shown that by strengthening these bonds in our brain through exposure to music, we can have more satisfying musical reactions as well as stronger cognitive abilities overall.
In fact, a recent study from the University of Southern California showed that children who study music not only show a greater ability to perceive differences in pitch and rhythm, but also have improvements in a wide range of areas linked to hearing or sound production. This includes areas such as speech perception, language development, and uniform reading skills of memorizing series (such as numbers).
Now, lighting designers reading this would ensure that lighting has an effect on people and would certainly be correct. For example, a 2014 study at the University of Liège identified unique photoreceptive cells in the eye called melanopsins, which link the sensation of light to the brain's non-visual centers.
When light triggers reactions in melanopsin photoreceptors, various brain functions occur, and different light changes actually make us think better and more clearly. This is actually how our "biological clock" works. According to the study, "the continuous change of light throughout the day changes our emotions from one moment to the next. Ultimately, these findings advocate for the use and design of lighting systems to optimize cognitive performance."
Now, it's clear that the science of music and light affects us, and there are many ways that engineers and lighting designers can help elicit emotional and physiological responses. That may be a strange and very scientific way of saying it, but ultimately, the goal of performance with lights and sound is to move emotions.
Emotional responses are also often triggered by the source of sound localization that can have an emotional impact if done intelligently. By finding ways to create emotional responses to music, sound engineers can help make the whole experience more memorable.
Good lighting design has similar effects. Everything from the brightness of color theory can affect an emotional lighting design. The unexpected plays an important role in this case as well, with changes in visual "dynamics" and altered light patterns creating changing moods and increased audience engagement. Good designers use these tools every day.
In fact Dan Hadley, lighting designer says: "My goal is to take people away from the 'social life' they are leading, so that they feel part of something bigger. When they allow themselves to be enveloped by the event, they can enjoy the community experience so absent in modern life. Those moments when everything connects, people's minds and hearts. This is when experiences are transformed into memories that are transported through emotions."
Text written by S. Kyle Davis of Harman Professional.
