Monday, December 22, 2008

Music & Scent: Clive Christian

"X is not going to undress during the day."  Back to that in a minute.

Robin over at NST alerted readers to the Clive Christian piano composition competition, wherein music composition students from the Royal College of Music are being invited to compose a piece based on one of three perfumes from the CC line.  You can poke through their website and see a video wherein the impetus behind the competition is discussed, and the competition is introduced to students at RCM.  It's a fun concept, overall; smell this, now, tell us what it is as music. 

If you've been reading for a while, you know that I am interested in parallels between music and perfume, both in terms of how the body receives/interprets, and in terms of language appropriate to describe each.  If "X" -- a CC offering -- is "not going to undress during the day," it is not going to have a drydown development.  Which is an interesting choice as a muse for a music composition competition...even pop music develops ABACAB.  (Phil Collins knew this, and Genesis sang about it during his tenure.)

Appropriateness of scent choice aside -- after all, perhaps X = Philip Glass (oh, no fair; try this link) -- I like the idea, and hope that all parties involved end up finding it a "successful" endeavor.

Though I'm not sure it was necessary to point out that CC is "the most expensive perfume" -- really, how does that form of data inform what your smeller communicates to your composer?

4 comments:

Rose said...

I agree it does sound very interesting- and the fact that Clive Christian is always quoted as the expensive perfume annoys me too, expensive doesn't= classy!

ScentScelf said...

Yes, and it was Ms. Christian offering the "we cost" message, so one must assume that was absolutely part of the intent.

But I am going to control my discontent with that aspect of things, since I would so love to see a competition like this become a regular thing. :)

The Daily Connoisseur said...

Love the idea of this competition... it sounds intriguing...

ScentScelf said...

DC, it occurs to me that I should keep track and post when there is a winner. Duly noted!