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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. -- ______________________________________________________________ Richard Zvonar, PhD (818) 788-2202 http://www.zvonar.com http://RZCybernetics.com