A Garden of Sounds and Flavours: Establishing a synergistic relationship between music and food in live performance settings
(2024)
author(s): Eduardo Gaspar Polo Baader
published in: KC Research Portal
During the past decade, there has been a surge in the literature about crossmodal correspondences, consistent associations our minds establish between stimuli that are perceived through different senses. Correspondences between sound/music and flavour/taste have received particular scholarly attention, which has lead to a variety of practical applications in the form of food and music pairings, mostly examples of so-called ‘sonic seasoning’, a way to use sound to enhance or modify the tasting experience.
This thesis aims to explore the pairing of food and music from an artistic perspective. Its goal is to find tools that would allow to present both music and food as components of coherent live performances in which neither of them is a mere ‘seasoning’ to the other. Through the description and exploration of different ‘mediating elements’ between them (such as crossmodal correspondences, but also structure, ritual, narrative, and others), a wide range of possibilities is presented to whoever wants to match food and music in a truly synergistic manner.
Readers interested in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary artistic practices of any kind might find the outcomes of this research useful for their own work.
Innovative Practice of Enhancing Musical Perceptions
(2021)
author(s): Noppakorn Auesirinucroch
published in: KC Research Portal
The human sensory system is complex and enigmatic but yet, attractive. Why are we continuously applying expressional words from another sensory modality and understanding it without any suspicion? In classical music, usage of the term dolce (sweet) to specify particular musical tones is frequently applied despite the word initially used to express a character of specific taste, which seems unrelated to music. This curiosity affects the researcher to explores a specific sensorial phenomenon, a crossmodal correspondence.
The study's objectives are to comprehend and utilise the topic of crossmodal correspondences to design multisensory performance with an emphasis on sound-taste associations. This exposition contains scientific reviews on crossmodal correspondences, interviews with a neurologist, and personal experience at a fine dining restaurant; additionally, the related subject, synaesthesia. Lastly, a review on the process of creating a flavour musical piece for solo guitar in collaboration with a prominent Thai composer, Piyawat Louilarpprasert, has been elaborated.