MEGHAN KHARSYNRAP
WHEN THE DINNER BELLS RING-
MUSIC THAT MATCHES YOUR FOOD!
It’s not odd to find food festivals with an open mic stage,
a dj lounge, performances by local artists or even big
ones. Most other festivities offer food and other services
because it’s normal to couple food with festivities, a hungry
audience is a grumpy one.
But food and music in particular have an interesting
relationship, call it construct if you want. But you cannot
deny the many playlists that have been made on soundcloud
simply for dinner parties. Sea food is undeniably good when
the sound of the waves crashing is played but not as nice
when country music is playing instead. A drink coupled
with the blues is more solemn than a drink at a club.
There have been countless studies on the relationship with
pitch and food. For example, volunteers were given pieces
of candy that had been curtailed for the experiment, and
the tastes that were brought to questions were sour, sweet,
bitter and salty. The food was consumed accompanied by
low pitched brass instruments or a high pitched piano piece.
The result was bitter and sweet. The candy eaten with the
piano playing was sweeter even though it was the same
candy in all experiments.
For someone who have their senses crossed: Synaesthesia,
wherein they could even taste colour, taste sounds or
hear colours etc. One’s experience of music could be
overwhelming. At a concert one could literally be feasting
on music so to speak. One could even wonder if someone
who is hearing impaired could perceive tastes differently
just like those whose senses are intertwined.
Most people already know that if your smelling abilities
are affected by illness your sense of taste is altered because
those senses are closely correlated. So if you have a cold
you might not be able to taste anything. The ISO defines
flavour as a complex combination of the olfactory, gustatory
and trigeminal sensations perceived during tasting. The
flavour may be influenced by tactile thermal painful and or
kinaesthetic effects. But researchers are starting to wonder
if this could apply to hearing and sound.
You may wonder if in that case animals associate food
and sound in the same way that we can and if they have
preferences. They can associate food and sound, take the
case of Pavlov’s Dogs and classic conditioning wherein the
dogs learned to associate their meal times with a particular
sound. The quality of sound is such that it can change
behavior. Animals do have taste receptors, but It’s still up
for questioning if they can truly appreciate tastes. This
element is significant to understanding why we can savour
tastes. For most animals eating is just for survival and
not pleasure.
Vocalists are often told their voices sound like honey or that
they produce a sweet sound. Inadvertently we as humans
we’re always joining the dots. Good voices are sweet, sweet
is considered favourable,a treat at the end of a meal if you
may. It’s an example of conditioning. . Since cultures are
diverse, there are tastes people haven’t encountered, soy
sauce when eaten for the first time without preparation
is pungent. Many people around me associate it to an
interrupted chord, and more so with the case of wasabi.
The taste is out of place in their memory and so it is no
wonder they associate it to all things unfamiliar. Since
music, especially modern age popular music is significantly
dependent on familiar chords and patterns many people
are not used to music outside of this box. Advertisers today
understand how influential sound is.
Chef Heston Blumenthal’s popular and signature dish The
‘Sound of the Sea’ at his restaurant The Fat Duck consists
of clams, sea urchins, seafood foam tapioca and panko sand.
The dish is presented with ambient waves sound from
an ipod tucked away in a seashell. This idea came about
when Charles Spence at Oxford University an