Arizona republican., 1922-05-02
BY Frederic ]. Aaskin

WASHINGTON, April 29.-Is your
nose educated? Can you tell. for
instance, the difference between Law
ender and garlic with your eyes shut? I?
If not, you had better begin to give
your nose daily setting-u exercises,
for the long neglected sense of smell
is coming into its own.
Perfume concerts are the latest
contribution of science to aestheti-
cism, and persons who have always
depended largely on convention to tell
them what to like and dislike in the
category OF scents are said to be at
a loss when turned loose among fu-
turistic perfume harmonies.
The perfume concert is a recent
scientific experiment. 1t has long
been held by some scientists that
harmonies of color, scent, or taste,
are as capable of giving aesthetic
pleasure as harmonies of sound. If
we enjoy series of musical chords,
they reasoned, why should we not
enjoy series of perfume harmonies,
or a series of blended colors. A
dress or painting may be beautiful
by reason of its colors alone. But
both color and perfume have always
been made to. serve as accessories.
They have been ignored as aesthetic
stimulants. Yet both can be fixed in
a scale, similar to the musical scale,
scientists find. Using these scales,
harmonious or clashing chords and
sequences can be. evolved, just as in
music. This, in a general way, is the
theory of the scientists who have
experimental with perfume and color.
So far as taste goes, it will be re-
membered that Huysmans in one of
his novels, describes a liquor organ.
This was made up of a scale of
liquors in glasses, and combinations
were formed and tasted by the oper-
ator. The symphony of taste would
seem to be a more far-fetched idea
than the concert of color or scent.
1t is especially far fetched now In
this country. for few aesthetics would
be able to rig out a complete set Of
liquid notes for an organ.
Scale of Soft Stuff
More practicable, perhaps. would
be a soda fountain organ, with
scale running from strawberry to va
nilla. The difficulty is that one sam
pie at a time of the soda clerks
skill at harmonies is enough for most
people. A complete symphony. con-
sisting of a succession of allegroE,
adagios college delights, and cherry
whoops would knock almost any pat
ron of the arts into transports of in
digestion. The American stomach
will have to be strengthened before
the American sense of teste can be
very much developed to appreciate
the soft drink concert.
The color organ presents fewer diff
ficulties. At least, it offers no inter-
nal danger to those testing its de-
lights. 1t has been used for some
time as an interesting novelty.
The score for a color composition
Is generally written in advance, and
the colors are projected on a screen
in the combinations and order that
the score directs. The concert is
produced by an operator at an organ
like instrument with key board, and
stops which control different light
rays.
Almost any one who is not color
blind or who is not entirely devoid
of a feeling for beauty can get some
pleasure from a simple color concert,
it is claimed. Very subtle harmonies
require more sensitive audience.
OF course, at any color performance
the person who is a critic and lover
of colors can get much more out of
the display than a person who is in
different to the appeal of the spect~
rum.
Civilized man is used to depending
on his eyes for information more than
on his ears, nose, or fingers. For
that reason, at least, the color organ
has a chance Of popularity When it
comes to the neglected nose, it
seems likely that at first only a few
sensitive souls will be able to enjoy
fully the subtleties of perfume con-
cert
perfume scale has been fixed by
DIR. Septimus Piesse. a French chem
ist. He uses delicate and pungent
scents for the high notes and the
heavy scents for low notes. Though
a few of the odors of his scale are
not familiar to the laynlan, most of
them are; so we quote the plan of
the perfume keyboard:
Patchouli to Civet
Starting with the bass clef, three
octayes below middle G: Do, patch
ouli: re, vanilla; mi, Glove bark; ia,
benzoin; sol, frangipane: la, storax;
81, Glove; do, sandalwood; re, clema-
tbs; init, rattan; ia, castoreum; sol.
pergulaire; la, balsarn OF Peru; si,
carnation: do, geranium; re, hello
trope; mi, iris; ia, musk; sol, pois
de sonteur; la, balsam of Tolu; ST,
cinnamon; do, rose.
Rose corresponds to middle G. The
treble rises with re, violet; mi, cas-
sia ia, tuberose: sol, orange flow
ers; la, new mown hay; 81. aurone;
do, camphor: re- almond: mi, Portu-
gal; ia, jonquil; sol, syringa; Ia,
tonka bean; 81, mint do, jassamine;