About three years ago, an article appeared in a newspaper: "To Japanese noodles or Udon, the "Four Seasons" of Vivaldi; the "Pastoral Symphony" of Beethoven to bread" (Asahi Shimbun, July 23, 1993). With classical music, fermentation of food stuffs is somehow promoted and tasty food products are obtained. To our regret, the reason is not revealed in the article, and only the following explanation is given: just as human beings become relaxed when they listen to music, enzyme or yeast seems to become active by classical music.
The interesting and mysterious effects of classical music on enzyme or yeast were made clear by Dr. Sternheimer, who remarks: "the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven has certainly positive effects on yeast. However, there exist far more appropriate melodies for it". He says so because he knows the great effects of protein music that he has discovered.
It must be noted that there are two types of melodies for a protein: one which promotes the synthesis of the protein and the other which inhibits the synthesis. For example, if a fermentation or brewing step of food stuffs is included in a food production process, the use of a melody or melodies appropriate for relevant enzyme, which is mainly composed of a protein and contained in the yeast for the fermentation step, makes it possible to promote or inhibit the activity of the enzyme. Therefore, the taste of the obtained food product will be influenced by the melodies.

Bread yeast becomes encouraged by a melody specially made for it

To make bread, we must prepare flour, water, yeast, and so on. Whether baked bread becomes tasty or not depends mainly on the activity of yeast during the fermentation provided that the same food stuffs are used. If the activity of enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which is contained in bread yeast and plays an important role in fermentation, is promoted during the fermentation of dough by the music of the enzyme, one can obtain tasty bread.
In fact, in a blind test for comparing the taste between the "musical bread" and normal bread without music, the former was by far preferred.
By the way, as for the reason why the Pastoral Symphony helps to make delicious bread, Dr. Sternheimer analyzes: "a part of the melody for activating ADH is contained in the theme of the first movement of the symphony". For bread, therefore, the whole symphony is not necessary, but only the first movement is sufficient.
However, if we could ask the bread yeast the preference of music, it would say in chorus to choose the melody for promoting ADH rather than the Pastoral Symphony on the ground that the former is more comfortable.

Improving food quality with the protein music

Between the protein music and existing music such as classical music, there is a difference similar to that between sovereign remedy and food. In more detail, the whole melody of the protein music is effective, while effective portions may be included in the existing music. Therefore, the protein music may be symbolically called "musical remedy". It must be noted, however, that the protein music should be treated with care just as sovereign remedy in general.
Before the positive effects of the Pastoral Symphony on bread was found, many trials might have been done. According to Dr. Sternheimer, so as to obtain the same effects by using non-specific music as those by specific music, one must play the non-specific music for more than a month, which period can be known by a simple calculation. Accordingly, arbitrary music cannot produce remarkable effects in a short time and a specific melody must be selected if relatively quick response is desired.
The main characteristics of the protein music are: the melody for obtaining desired effects can be theoretically deduced; and the same effects as those by classical music can be obtained far faster than by using classical music. For example, the article cited at the beginning says about bread: "before baking dough, yeast was fermented for 72 hours with the Pastoral Symphony. This is a fermentation time more than ten times longer than normal". On the other hand, dough was fermented with the ADH music by Dr. Sternheimer for 1 hour and a half. Therefore, delicious bread is obtained about 50 times more efficiently in time with the use of the ADH music than with the Pastoral Symphony.
We are looking forward to increasing the pleasure of table in the near future using the protein music, which may bring us delicious bread, good beer, wine and sake, and miso paste and soy sauce with high quality.