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Re: Serious discussion about pot & looping/music



It varies.  Hydro usually has a small brain stem, but outdoor has a thick
hearty brain stem close to the center.

Oh! You meant BRAIN stem.  My apologies.

Who knows? :)

Jeff

On 5/23/03 10:53, "Geoff Smith" <geoff.smith15@btopenworld.com> wrote:

> Just out of curiousity where is the brain stem?
> I have never heard this term before.
> Geoff
> on 23/5/03 3:09 pm, Richard Zvonar at zvonar@zvonar.com wrote:
> 
>> At 12:16 PM +0200 5/23/03, Stuart Wyatt wrote:
>>> I would be very interested to share my ideas about pot and music,
>>> and would be very interested to hear other people's experiences on
>>> the subject.
>> 
>> Speaking only for my personal experience with marijuana and music, I
>> found that getting moderately stoned would facilitate a certain state
>> of awareness that was useful for composing. I found it easy to "relax
>> into" a focus on the sound of the music and the act of playing, and I
>> found that in some ways my creativity seemed to be enhanced. I
>> wouldn't say that "pot makes you more creative," but that relaxation
>> and focus certainly do.
>> 
>> Before I ever got into playing while stoned I made a regular practice
>> of listening while stoned. In these situations the effects were even
>> more pronounced and included an increase in visualization of the
>> music. Without the necessity of performing I could relax more deeply
>> and place more of my awareness on following the details of the sound
>> and in "mapping" the sounds to an internal visual "score."
>> 
>> I did not find that getting stoned and playing with other people was
>> such a great success. Unfortunately, I am one of those for whom
>> marijuana (particularly certain "heavier" varieties such as
>> Columbian) leads to self-consciousness even unto paranoia. I also
>> believe that getting stoned can foster an inflated sense of
>> significance, so that one's creations seem at the time to be more
>> brilliant than they do in retrospect. This could spell trouble in a
>> performance situation, and in my bands we always made it a rule not
>> to smoke until after the gig. The same thing went for drinking
>> alcohol, though we were more relaxed about that.
>> 
>> I've also noticed some interesting effects while playing while stoned
>> on LSD, though I did that only once. I felt that my awareness
>> extended into other parts of my nervous system, beyond the cerebral
>> cortex. In particular, while playing, I felt conscious of activity in
>> my brain stem. I practiced Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun" while in
>> this state and was impressed by how well this psychedelic rehearsal
>> "took" and showed lasting results.
>> 
>> Interestingly, my guitar teacher would also stress the importance of
>> focusing awareness on the brain stem while practicing - he told me
>> this about a year after my LSD experience, and without my telling him
>> about it.
> 
>