Meshuggah talk to O2 Academy TV about new album 'Koloss', staying passionate when writing music and how they apply mathematical theory to their music. Check out more videos and subscribe: ru-vid.com
Dude you ain't lying. Perfect. I was just mentioning changing our original accents for fun last night and here I know he's from Sweden and I'm thinking wait is he really American tho
Pretty much any Swedish or Norwegian person you’d find would be capable of at least 90% fluent English. They have the highest rate of English second language speakers in the world.
Yes - I agree with the rhythm guitarist of the band that math is only good for discussing the theory, but when you sit down and try to play their music, it's about how it GROOVES. That's what sets them apart from other bands where the math is first - these guys always stay in the pocket. It's a deep pocket, but a great one nonetheless.
i dont fucking get it though, how are these grooves natural to them? ive been listening to this band for 8 years but i still cannot always anticipate the next beat. I dont get it. Either their lying and its somewhat calculated or they're metal wizard savants who are too humble or trying to seem badass that it comes so natural to them
I think that they are very intelligent, very thoughtful dudes for sure, and there's nothing wrong with you if you're stuck on something. I understand their basic formula, but there are still some songs that stump me. I love that feeling though. Listen for the patterns instead of trying to feel the smaller nuances - take in the macro before trying to hear the micro. They are masters of patterns or "cycles". They are also masters of sonic and rhythmic feeling. What they say about their music is true.
Bic Boi It's not that incredible. There are lot's of bands out there with even more rhythmical structures (check out Louis de Mieulle with Matt Garstka for really crazy examples). There is a video of Jojo Mayer where he explains polyrhythms. At first, it's all about counting. All about learning the feel of 3 over 4 or 5 over 3. When you master this, you can go and practice various stuff on top of that feeling and from then on you stop counting the different beats against each other and just feel it. I'm still counting, but it is possible and I'm to a point, where I feel lots of stuff Meshuggah plays. (the small nuances holygroove talks about can't be anticipated, they are on top of that feeling)
Mitchell S. Hm, it's kind of hard to explain. You might watch JoJo Mayer's video about polyrhythmic to get a better understanding. An example might help. Imagine you play 16th notes on the hi-hat and quarters on the bass. Then you accent every third hit on the hat. Now you can also play only the first and third of these three hits and you'll basically have a shuffle groove in 3 over 4 that you can assist for example with the snare, etc.. So now imagine you play a beat like the Rosanna Shuffle on that feeling. The Rosanna Shuffle has lots of stuff going on on top of the basic shuffle groove. I hope you can grasp what I'm thinking of.
Yeah I agree. Math is in every bit of music. But theres something about music that is so intuitive to the human mind that people generally prefer to think of the music with what "feels" right and interesting rather than mapping it all out.
listen to tool, they have a lot of mathematical influence und they still are one of my favourit bands because they groove and its complex, maybe not as heavy as meshuggah but still awsome!
i love it. as a lazy musician, i to don't want to sit around doing 'math... which is actually just fluctuating around different time signatures & note lengths .. which requires... counting. not math... you're brain should always be able to produce an interesting sequence of it's own once you reach a certain experience level, no one should sit around all day 'calculating' out 'patterns' :P sorry to those who wish to believe meshuggah is on par with Einstein. determined, witty musicians for sure. fast and very well practiced. but leave the calculating to the physicists
+Bic Boi No, a riff will be natural to the band member who wrote that riff. Then that member will program drums on top of that, even if only for reference, which speeds up the whole process in terms of communicating that riff to the other members so that they will be able to start laying down recordings faster. Typically an odd-time, spontaneously created riff will be "reconciled" with a common time feel (4/4). The question is if the cycling/modulating is just a by-product of this reconciliation or if it was the original intention. I'd bet both cases occur. Sometimes a drum groove will spark a whole song. So, their music is an organic merging of "naturally occurring" and "synthetic" elements. When the "happy-accident," "reverse naturalization" occurs, I think the concept of "finding the groove" in something that was awkward to be a very cool and novel music concept. Not just a concept, but apparently something worth delving into, because the geometric psychological sensations are awesome! Also, counting in music should be a non-issue. Just because you're not mentally "saying" the numbers of the beat doesn't mean it's not a form of measuring and sub-dividing time, which is something like 50% of music. A metronome: Can you learn to play a chord arrangement on a perfect tempo/on beat? Of course. Can you learn that faster with a metronome. For sure!
Dude there is an cultural element to all this thing, for example, here in Brazil we have Samba. So any average brazilian dude could clap his hands to samba. The thing is Samba have some different ways to play but can be 2/4, 3/3 or 3/4. Take an average rocker an he gonna spend some time to handle those rithmn. So, that being said, and knowing the huge Jazz influence on Meshuggah musicians, you can say it has some natural elements on the execution.
Okay, music is chords/notes that create melody's...drums like this noise they play is a set of beats repeated mathematically with variations!!! Glad I could clear that up!!!
I think that they are all in on it when they kind of downplay their methods and processes as a means of concealing the nuts and bolts of their sound and music.
Exactly. They are always so vague and mysterious as to how they write. In an interview, the interviewer said she knows a guy that was touring with them, he asked about their process and said "they write their songs through mathematical equations and figure out if they can play them physically" I honestly believe that is how it's done. Of course, Haake says it's untrue, but looks even frustrated somewhat that she brought it up.
Even with a lot of open lows Meshuggah is still too rhythmically complex for you metal snobs to play. So they do their thing separately, big Fuckin deal. If anything that's probably for the better. Ever tried working on one song with other people? It's a pain in the ass. Better to just arrange a song piece by piece . Meshuggah is not a thrash, doom , or any sort of melodic metal band. And calling them Djent is like calling Tool nu metal.
...can I just call them metal. Also awesomely talented because, holy shit that shit is complex...and this is coming from a guy who can only play two and a half songs and guitar. I think if i had an idea as to how one actually plays at that level, my mind would explode.
Odd groupings and polymeters are 2 different things ,my friend.Odd groupings are any group of notes that aren't 4.Triplets are odd groupings but are they polymeter?No.Polymeter is imposing one time signature over another.The groupings of the notes have nothing to do with the time signature ,the pulse does.I am sure that if you think about what i am saying you would agree with me.
"odd cycles" as you call is just phrasing that doesn't start on the first beat of every bar.Every music has it.What you are referring to is called Syncopation ,and yes every music has it.It's just emphasized in a different way in Meshuggah songs.And yes ,Fredrik is a huge Allan Holdsworth fan.That's why Fredrik's solos are 92% copying Holdsworth's style.
As usual, another thread devolves into argumentation. I have to say though, nice job on keeping it civil and respectful for the most part (at least from what I've read thus far).
Ricardo Perez Well I wasn't asking you I was asking the guy ripping on Meshuggah. It's also upsetting to hear you say Bleed is their most overrated song because it deserves every ounce of credit it gets. 32nd note triplets consistently following an evolving pattern? Absolutely incredible. Haake had to "relearn" drumming to play that song. Meshuggah hasn't released anything that's overrated. If there youre favorite band you should realize that
Ricardo Perez Catch 33 is definitely amazing but Meshuggah even says that album was mostly experimental and not completely an album. Which is why they probably mostly stick to playing In Death live. I think Chaosphere is their best. Corridor Of Chameleons is insanely ahead of its time. Then I think Koloss is their 2nd best. Marrow alone is good enough to show what Meshuggah can do. I used Bleed as an example because it's the most obviously difficult to play and understand, even on guitar. A lot of Meshuggah songs are significantly more difficult to drum in my opinion which is why I chose Bleed up there. I would say Stengah though is still the most difficult pattern to understand (especially from a drumming standpoint)
