Smelling and Tasting Sound

smelling and tasting sound www.sennheiser-annualreport.com Annual Report 2010 COVER PHOTO British photographer Nick Veasey has a passion for making the invisible visible. By x-raying his subjects, he is able to create a whole new world of images, unmasking a beauty that has never been seen before. Like this delicate and fragrant flower. Annual Report 2010 080895 Printed in Germany EDITORIAL 3 ur senses of smell and taste are uniquely intertwined. Only when they play in counterpoint are we truly able to O experience flavor. That much you probably know. But did you know that the right sound is able to intensify a meal’s flavor by 10 percent? In this annual report, we profile the British celebrity chef and Oxford scientist who made this discovery. Following “Seeing sound” in 2008 and “Feeling sound” in 2009, this year’s focus is “Smelling and tasting sound.” Paderborn music professor Heiner Gembris gives us a glimpse into the world of perfumers, who communicate in the same language as musicians. And who knows better about the cross-modal effect of melodies than the composer of the well-known theme songs for Das Boot and the German TV series Tatort? During an interview in his studio, Klaus Doldinger gives us his insights into the saxophone’s sensuality and the importance of choosing the right microphone. What’s more, we teamed up with a culinary treasure hunter who scours local Asian markets in search of long- forgotten or unknown ingredients. Stir them together and these stories will give you a fresh look at our core business. As audio specialists, sound is our passion. I hope you enjoy this new experience: smelling and tasting sound. Yours, Prof. Dr. Jörg Sennheiser “Sound is our greatest passion.” 4 Ex EcutivE ManagEMEnt Board Ex EcutivE ManagEMEnt Board 5 Peter callan dr. Heinrich Esser d aniel Sennheiser d r. andreas Sennheiser v olker Bartels Paul Whiting President, Consumer Electronics Division President, Professional Systems President, Strategy and Finance President, Supply Chain Division President, Corporate Services, President, Global Sales Division Division and Installed Sound Division Spokesperson of the Executive Management Board 6 CONTENTS PAGE Authors 44 & Artists PAGE Masthead PAGE 10 46 & Contact PAGE Sniffing 08 Listening melodies Klaus Doldinger, Germany’s finest jazz musician and most to perfume notable soundtrack composer, writes music to evoke idyllic beaches and the smell of limes. He compares the Note, composition, theme. The effect musical enjoyment of music to the taste of alpine trout. terminology has on a perfumer’s inspiration. PAGE 16 Tracking sound We don’t just listen to The Indiana Jones of Asian cuisine combs obscure markets and music with our ears, but with Smelling forests in his quest for new flavors. How does the background our noses and mouths music for the food hunter sound? PAGE 38 Tasting as well – awakening some and tasting sound of the most glorious Heston Blumenthal cooks with sounds, sound experiences. and serves the seven senses. The Brit is one sound of the finest chefs in the world. Together with a team of scientists, he explores PAGE the multisensory promise of haute cuisine. 22 Drinking PAGE PAGE 32 26 music Smelling The old rule of thumb: white wine Crafting with fish and red wine with beef. But now rhythm scientists have proved that the right music enhances the enjoyment of wine. brands When the bass booms, he fills the club with the smell of amber. And when the clubbers start People build emotional associations to things. to get rowdy, he atomizes bergamot. ODO7 is no That’s why product designers create sounds, smells and ordinary DJ – he’s an aroma jockey. flavors that shape our overall brand experience. 8 Composition not measurable is the connection between fragrance and music, between a musical note and a perfume note, between a musical chord and a perfume accord. Fragrance has no physical or material counterpart. Unlike sound recording, it is not possible to record the Though musicians and perfumers may have a different raison d’être, smell of perfume and then use modern technology to encode its substance and spirit into bits and bytes. they speak a common language. One that creates a mood and fills the air with magic. An essay by Heiner Gembris, professor of Empirical music Education and music psychology, paderborn, Germany A good recording is an emotional experience If I wanted to enjoy a perfume in a different location or at some other time, I would have to secure the perfume composition and its ingredients in its original formulation. It’s different with music. I get the same A tone, a chord, a sound. Three words, one sensuous realm in which we are immediately feeling of sound and emotion from listening to a transported to the land of sound located in the world of music. But even as we explore faithfully reproduced musical performance – meaning this new territory, we come across similar terminology in the land of fragrances. a good recording taken up by perfectly matched Accords, harmonies and consonances permeate the perfumers’ language. Knowing instrumental, vocal and studio microphones. Sub- how much our speech mirrors our thoughts, it is fascinating to discover how very merging oneself in fragrance or music isn’t just a similar the vocabulary used to describe a piece of music and a fragrance actually is. matter of fragrant substances and musical elements. Both are built up on a “note.” For the one, it is a musical note. For the other, a perfume Other factors such as one’s mood, expectations, social note. One requires various musical elements to compose a coherent opus, a melodic context or room conditions can play an important part sequence of recurring musical notes; the other requires a variety of substances to in their modality. But do music and fragrance ever play compose a fragrant nosegay, an aromatic sequence of recurring perfume notes. It’s no in counterpoint? Yes. Their common wonder composers have tried to come up with their own attribute is their ability to create an musical interpretation of fragrance – albeit rarely. A hundred atmosphere. A mood. A lingering notes are associated with brightness and years ago, French composer Claude Debussy successfully transported to a warm summer night on the Iberian Peninsula, impression in the air that is perceived a sense of spatial height; low tones with translated music into fragrance in his orchestral masterpiece where a bouquet of flowers and Mediterranean trees exhale by all the senses: hearing, smell, darkness and heaviness. In the perfumery, Les parfums de la nuit: the fragrance of the night. Its title is their fragrance in a gentle wave of perfume carried on a light sight, touch and taste. high notes describe fresh, light notes; low as mysterious as it is evocative. Whenever I listen to it, I am breeze. Debussy’s unique compositional style lends itself to notes, deep and rather intense oriental creating such musical illusions. His colorful harmonies create Quiet tones – delicate fragrances fragrances. A quick musical tempo signifies richly sophisticated and imaginative melodies that release him One way to understand how music the smell of cologne as it quickly fades away. from the constraints of traditional harmonies. Debussy’s music and fragrance intertwine is to A leisurely tempo conjures up the sense of lingers. It is indefinable. describe their notes. In music, high heavier, muskier notes. Loud sounds reflect a fragrance’s intensity; soft sounds, delicate Fragrance has neither physical nor material counterpart or light fragrances. However, there has likely Although there are linguistic similarities, perfume and music never been such a beautiful combination of are built on two very different sensory modalities and, without fragrances as those interpreted by Debussy a common frame of reference, it is not easy to compare in his Les parfums de la nuit. them. Music’s unique elements of notes, scales, chords and rhythms, however, can be described and measured according to such physical parameters as pitch, volume and tempo. What is Sound 11 “It all comes down to the microphone” Klaus Doldinger, Germany’s foremost jazz musician, has been composing music for advertising, television (the German crime series Tatort) and film since the 1960s. Doldinger is known internationally for his screen scores for Das Boot and The Never- ending Story. The jazz saxophonist and his band, Passport, have been performing together for over 40 years. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, Doldinger talks about music’s sensuality and gives his insight into how to choose the right microphone. Is there a smell or taste to music? (Laughs) That would make it all the better. When music grabs you, it evokes all kinds of feelings, though I am not sure one would get the same sense of enjoyment as sitting down to a nice meal of alpine trout. How- ever, I do believe that good sound and the right music can trigger a physical sense of well-being. Wild Freshness, the advertising jingle you composed in 1969 for the beauty soap Fa, has become a classic. Is it possible for music to conjure up a sense of the “wild freshness of lime”? Back then, I had just started to write music for films, documentaries and TV commercials. All of a sudden, Is playing the saxophone sensuous? that took precedence, not the band. Questions like When you play, you are fully connected and totally “Who’s playing?” or “Who can play what?” were involved in the instrument. Though you may not get the expanded to include questions on content, sequences same feeling you do when listening to music, playing and synchronization. It’s possible to create an adds a whole new dimension.

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