Check this out: guitar strings silhouetted against the sky, filmed from the inside of a 12-string guitar as someone plays a tune called “Lick Mountain Ramble.” The “stop-motion” effect induced by the very nature of video lets us see the lengths & shapes of the waves which are resonating through each string.
You’ll notice the frame rate of the camera and the wavelength of each pitch interact to create the illusion of motion. (This is just like the mesmerizing effect in a car commercial where the changing speed of a car can make it look as if the wheels are spinning very slowly or even backward.) A commenter called these “stroboscopic artifacts.”
Hypnotic and beautiful! Very cool 🙂
Hypnotic is a great word. Those strings just jump from one shape to the next. Occasionally a wave looks as if it’s standing perfectly still, and that really grabs me.