A short note on taste/food as a impulse to making music

Spurred by a recent comment a previous posting about chemistry and music, I thought I'd leave a few thoughts about chemistry/taste/scent/aroma vs. music; most of all just to have them written hem down, really.

At the moment I haven't come any further with this apart from day to day musing. The main idea is that as a large proportion of taste is in fact aroma; what is perceived through the nose receptors rather than the tongue. In our "improjazz" band Quest (www.questmusic.no and myspace music) we've used both visual arts (photography) and text/poetry as impulse to making improvised music. These are both impulses received by our senses (visual and auditory). However, taste and aroma are very powerful impulses in association making. Just imagine how the smell of a dish that you've not tasted since you were a small child, or the perfume of the grandmother you spent a lot of time together with as young, may set you right back to situations years back in time in a way that few other impulses do. To me this happens especially in smelling and/or tasting food I had a lot of as a child, or had in a special situation.

So, my thoughts these days circle around the possibilities that lie in using smell as impulse for me as a musician to create music, in the same way as hearing a poem or seeing a photography/painting/picture. I suppose this leans towards some sort of performance art, although other arts than music aren't my field of expertise in any way.

Finally, one interesting thing I came across through Martin's khymos blog was Aroma jockey. This relates very closely to the thoughts above, but to me it seems like he uses recorded music. I'd love to see where this could lead in cooperation with live musicians.

Erik