-
Does being high improve your ability to make music or does it inhibit it?
I'm mainly asking about being high on weed. But I'm also interested in knowing the effects of alcohol or (if you have experience) psychedelics on your performative experience.Last edited by Tal_175; 02-25-2022 at 10:44 AM.
-
02-25-2022 10:27 AM
-
It's hard to imagine drunkenness improving anybody's performance of anything. On the other hand, weed does open up creativity for some people, and just paralyzes others with fear and paranoia, as well as causing one to forget what tune you're playing. If you've mastered your technique and mind-hand connection, you might find yourself playing better while stoned, but a recording may show merely an altered state that doesn't help at all.
-
Weed is pretty benign...would much rather play with someone high than with someone drunk...as for me, I won't do either and play, I need all my senses and capabilities intact.
I have had a few situations in rock type improv bands where somebody too baked couldn't listen for shit, but they also weren't that good of a player in the first place.
-
Back in my younger days, in the late 60s, I played more than once under the effects of alcohol. I have no doubt that I played much worse than I would have if sober. I strongly doubt that any mind-altering drug, in whatever form, will make anyone play better. Caffeine, perhaps, but THC, ethanol, hallucinogens, or whatever cannot, IMO, improve one's playing ability. Anyone on a high might think they're playing much better, but judgement is always impaired and what seems real isn't necessarily true. Being high might make the audience appreciate your playing more, since I think it can enhance a passive experience. Better a high audience than a high performer, I think.
-
My many, many experiences with dopes and drunks leads me to believe that whatever stimulant/depressant you use to feel good makes you subjectively less objective about your playing, leading to the illusion that you sound better than you really do. A certain blunting of the critical faculties, as it were. A smokescreen between you and reality.
I worked for a leader who never drank on the job. One night he had a cocktail, then another, and another. He thought he turned in the greatest performance of his life. Later, listening to a tape of the performance, he could hear how awful it really sounded. He never had a drink on the job again.
Conciousness-altering substances distort perception in way we may find pleasurable. Rose-ay colored glasses, y'might say. Smoke gets in your eyes....
As Jeff said, I need all my faculties in good working order to function properly.
On the other hand, if by chance you are going to be listening to my stuff, by all means, relax and get yourself into a positive and receptive mood....
-
Alcohol never. Weed may increase your creativity. Trouble is, you won’t remember any of your oh-so-clever riffs the next day.
-
But... how many of the famous names were semi-permanently out of it on dope and/or booze? Was it Stan Getz, when asked how he played so well when he was high, who said 'I practice when I'm high'.
But it's not actually funny, of course. I've looked over various articles about it and the themes are much the same. There was not only racism and segregation, the economic climate (like simple poverty or the Depression), but the hard life of travelling performers, the constant state of excitement and pressure to perform, the ready availability of drugs, and so on, but the players' own tendency to addiction.
It's generally accepted now that being out of it doesn't really 'increase one's creativity', rather that it got to the stage where they needed the drug to perform at all. Parker was really a serious case, for example. Everyone adulates him but he declined very rapidly, spent time in mental hospitals, got into a lot of trouble with the law, and died when he was 34.
And the tragedy is that so many people want to play like him, presumably without the physical, mental, and lifestyle problems that went with it. Rather crazy, really.
-
+1! One of the most annoying PUI problems I've had came from a well known local keyboard player (now prematurely deceased, thanks in large part to his continued chemical abuse of his body). I'd booked my band for a big fraternity party at Penn, and at the last minute my regular keyboard player couldn't make it - so he sent this guy to sub. When clean and sober, he was a fantastic player. But his ups and downs were well known and I would never have hired him. We all knew him well, because his father was a fine and well respected band leader in town.
Originally Posted by citizenk74
He showed up with a decent keyboard..........and only a decent keyboard. He was so stoned that he could hear himself play without an amplifier. I first assumed he'd left his amp in the car and would go out to get it - but talking to him revealed several critical things, none of which bode well for the gig. When he told me in speech laced with the pathetic simplicity of Maynard G Krebs and the slurred insouciance of Dean Martin that he didn't need an amp, I sent him home and we were a power trio that night.
I witnessed many meltdowns from alcohol and drugs. I backed a wonderful and well known blues singer/guitarist at the Wilmington (DE) Bues and MIcrobrews Festival several years ago. He was so drunk by the time we hit the stage in early afternoon that I had to play the solos. But fans kept bringing him more to drink while he was on stage. I was backing another national blues act that night at the original Warmdaddy's in Philly, and the leader invited our inebriated friend to come to the club and sit in. He'd spent the hours between shows drinking - major disaster!
When I was in high school, my band was the opening act for the record hops run by WMID in Atlantic City. A particularly big one featured the singer of the #1 rock single in the country at the time. He was so drunk that he couldn't perform, and we were told to stay up and keep playing.
I often wonder how much more amazing some of the greats we all love would have sounded if they'd been clean and sober. James Jamerson cut many Motown hits while so out of it that he played lying on the floor. CS&N were apparently high for many of their recordings and performances. It's truly sad how many great artists and performers deluded themselves into accepting their dependencies as performance enhancers.
-
I have found that playing after having a couple of scotches I typically find a few more dings in my guitar . . . I'm certain the same could be said for my playing.
I prefer when the music creates the "high".
-
Imagine being Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Hendrix, practicing hours and hours on end, gigging constantly , always working on your craft and then your fans dismiss all that hard work with “it’s the drugs that made him good, I’ll get high and then I’ll be as good as my hero”
whatever romantic idea you have about drugs and alcohol, they’re fantasies. Nothing makes you play better but practice, there are no short cuts.
-
Oh man. Pass that joint!
-
I forget.
-
This reminds me of a study conducted on Aderall (essentially prescription Meth). What they found was that the main effect of Adderall was to increase the perception of success. The sense of “really killing it” way outstripped any measurable improvement in problem solving, recall, or alertness. Originally Posted by citizenk74
My many, many experiences with dopes and drunks leads me to believe that whatever stimulant/depressant you use to feel good makes you subjectively less objective about your playing, leading to the illusion that you sound better than you really do. A certain blunting of the critical faculties, as it were. A smokescreen between you and reality.
I worked for a leader who never drank on the job. One night he had a cocktail, then another, and another. He thought he turned in the greatest performance of his life. Later, listening to a tape of the performance, he could hear how awful it really sounded. He never had a drink on the job again.
Conciousness-altering substances distort perception in way we may find pleasurable. Rose-ay colored glasses, y'might say. Smoke gets in your eyes....
As Jeff said, I need all my faculties in good working order to function properly.
On the other hand, if by chance you are going to be listening to my stuff, by all means, relax and get yourself into a positive and receptive mood....
However, people so crave that feeling they were “winning” that the subjects of the study would often want to keep going despite obvious signs of fatigue.
To me, that is why drugs seem so appealing to the musician. Who doesn’t practice longer when we are “in the groove”? Who doesn’t play better when we are confident and relaxed? Drugs can artificially give you all of that. They also impair your motor function, mental sharpness, recall and judgment.
From personal experience and knowledge of history, it is clear to me that the costs to the musician outpaces any benefit.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
-
although if what they say about opiate addicts is true - that after a while you just need the drugs to feel normal, perhaps that explains all the great junkie musicians like Charlie Parker or Bill Evans?
Apparently there is a huge use of beta blockers by classical musicians in performance, wonder if true for Jazz players, particularly in conservatory / competition circuits
Some of it is levels and reserves of ability - I cant play for shit after a couple of drinks, but Bird could play better than most anyone completely trashed
-
Don’t know about Getz, but Johnny Griffin (who at one time had a serious booze habit) said the reason he could play so well when drunk, was that he always practised when drunk. (It’s mentioned in his biography as I recall). Originally Posted by ragman1
-
In high school, I knew a guy who swore by studying high and taking the tests high, because "think about it man, what do you do when you get high? You sit around and remember all the stuff you did the last time you were high!" Originally Posted by grahambop
-
Oh, was it him? You could well be right, you're good at being accurate. Originally Posted by grahambop
I probably don't remember because the quote was funnier than the person who said it :-)
-
Originally Posted by grahambop
I don't know about being drunk, but I know a thing about practising while in dream territory. Amusing once in a while, but not very efficient. Maybe if I were a better musician I could let my subconscious imagination run wild with my fingers and have a (1) successful performance or record. The problem would be with playing those "compositions" again :]
-
Coryell. Met him backstage at the Red Bank Tal concert (some of you were there))) and the guy was so stoned he could barely stand up, much less talk. He proceded to play a couple of hours in a after concert concert… and jhe was incredible.
Heard many a story about Lenny Breau and Robitussin.
Me? One glass of whatever (or drug equivalent) and i lose all hand brain connection. Dunno if i am lucky or cursed.
-
I did not use weed when younger. In my early 50's I was gifted some edibles. I had a cookie and later picked up my guitar, I was just noodling around and suddenly I play the most beautiful chord I ever heard, but as soon as I took my hand off the neck I was completely dumbfounded as to WTF I just played Originally Posted by darkwaters
Pot makes me stupid, my mind will just go blank in mid sentence, no idea what I was talking about. On the rare occasions I might use an edible, I only do so when I know I will be alone.
I sometimes slowly sip a little whiskey when practicing but in small enough dose over time, less than 1 drink per hour, that it has no effect. If performing, not a drop.
-
It depends on the style of music and the person really. Personally i drink sodas when gigging often, the guitar and the playing is dope enough by itself. On occasions I've lost high $$$ paying touring gigs for being the only sober guy in the band, so ..
.. it is what it is..
-
Fired for being SOBER????? Well that's a 180 from the norm !!!! Originally Posted by Alter
It depends on the style of music and the person really. Personally i drink sodas when gigging often, the guitar and the playing is dope enough by itself. On occasions I've lost high $$$ paying touring gigs for being the only sober guy in the band, so .... it is what it is..
-
I suspect that it was your perception and appreciation that were affected, rather than your playing. Originally Posted by whiskey02
-
Drugs and alcochol are bad for a musical mind. I'm 100% sure of that.
You may get a strange momentary boost of some kind. But no. No no no.
-
It comes down to a physiological phenomenon called "state-related learning." In short, when new information is acquired, part of the matrix that the information is embedded in is one's blood chemistry. Learn a new lick after inhale a formerly contraband substance? You'll need it to recall it. As far as people who function well despite being in an altered state, IME these people are using all the time. It's just background radiation to them and hence requisite. Call it what it is - addiction. Which is OK if you can afford it, I guess. Humans have always taken steps to alter their perceptions - to amplify pleasure, to dull pain. The trick is to minimize dependency on substances, especially illegal ones, and try to maintain an even keel. I'm dependent on a score, more or less, of chemicals whose names I cannot pronounce, let alone spell, but they are needed to keep my old and battered hulk alive, not to get me off. I have guitars and amps for that.
Reply With Quote
Playing live and getting the best sound from the...
Today, 02:08 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos