Crunchy Acoustics
Gastrophysics
You may have noticed that fresh food has a characteristic sound. The onomatopoeia krrat or something like that. There's a reason for it.
The chemical bonds that keep a structure rigid, particularly if they contain cell walls, offer a resistance to the action of the mandible that when defeated creates ripples due to mini explosions that travel at more than 343m/s, this means they when broken, get you a mini-sonic booms.
The sound produced by CO2 bubbles breaking, after a freshly served beverage, is also a similar event. I'm talking about you Coca-Cola.
As our brain has learned to deal with this synesthetic cluster fuck we vary our sense of taste with it[1]
Psychoacoustics
Is not only the speed but also the frequency of it. A crisp sound is a property of something brittle as the layer that offers resistance is small, something we've learned to associate with fried, less fresh and salty food. [2]
Normally ranges below the 1.9kHz (A#6/Bb6 on a piano) are considered crunchy. Low-frequency sounds are associated with higher energy, this is known as the crunchy barrier. There's an interesting psychoacoustic relationship between this point and taste. [3]
Change in taste
People seem to hate plane and hospital food. Hospital food it kind of makes sense, as it needs to be restricted for consuming of sick patients and flavor is the last thing on doctors minds at that place yet even food that would otherwise be quite tasty is dull during a plane flight, probably due to the high background noise eliminating the high frequencies and their overtones.[4]
It has been shown that high-frequency harmonic sounds have an effect on the experienced taste by people. If you taste your coffee while listening to these sounds (high-frequency) it tastes sweeter. If you use low pitch brassy sounds it actually tastes bitter.[2]
The most common type of equalization or response in microphones used for the human voice uses a boost around this frequency and a limiter bellow 100Hz for ambient noise reduction. Probably cause we like the sweetness historically associated with it.
Let me, let me *burp* go full conspiratory theorist with you. If you want something to have this sensation in a song you would probably use a key that breaks this barrier multiple times, so probably a Major Key, probably on A Major, and dulled dragged crispy slightly nasal voice with low harmonies and the lyrics to accompany...
Well, I introduce you to such a song.
It is indeed a bittersweet symphony. The perfect musical meal.
(yeah, I know is actually closer to E Mixolydian and I'm stretching it a bit. So what B I T E - M E, I'm crunchy with that)
Enjoyed it, right? then here's more of my cool shit:
Armor Body Suit (Part 1: Skin)
References
Do you know that gastrophysics is also the physics behind the study of gravitational waves :)
Kind of, I only find problematic the extension of it.
Gastrophysics: The indirect flavor of a black hole
Sounds more like a reason to not being an asshole to your waitress.
Damned! I never thought about that! That is just great! :)
I think you're too smart for this place sometimes. Excellent post, well written, and I learned something new. Thank you for including the references, I'm fascinated by these sorts of 'random' pieces of research.
Let me tell you a story:
I'm dummy dog chasing cars. I hope to bring value while improving quality and making it more relatable. Glad you enjoyed. Is the simple things man.
Dude!, she wouldn't worth it
Just thinking about the sound made me hungry Oo
Hungry for apples?
Nice post.