Mind-Altering Substances & The Creative Process

for creativity? maybe.
for motivation and cohesiveness? no way.

actual collaboration has always been best for creativity.
 
I smoked a lot of grass, Lord knows I popped a lot of pills...

Smoking weed and playing always sounded like a good idea, but in practice didn't really work too well, it only served to hamper my focus.
Honestly though, cocaine helped me overcome stage fright, made me stretch out more on guitar and I think it made me sing better as well.
It also cost me a girlfriend and a shitload of money. Looking back, I wish I'd spent that time playing with a clear head.
 
I've never written any great tunes, but my best ones IMO were when I was under the influence.
But my playing clearly suffers when I'm drunk or anything.
 
Gary Blanchard said:
I think that the problem is many people are too uptight to be creative. There are better ways than substances to deal with that.
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So when I want to create without being uptight, the little woman can service me orally?
Can this be written as a prescription by my doctor? :wink:
 
Tig said:
So when I want to create without being uptight, the little woman can service me orally?
Can this be written as a prescription by my doctor? :wink:
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Well, that wasn't what I had in mind. I was thinking more in the lines of meditation. But if your doctor will write the prescription...
 
I dunno.

I used to smoke weed and I took my share of other stuff back in the college days ('shrooms, LSD, etc....).

I think a few hits off a joint will relax you, and that could help your creative process.

Being stoned off your tits...well, I think it would only lead to songs about Doritos, Twinkies and trying to play like that guy from Phish, which you can't, so....probably not a good idea.
 
At times weed may help with spontaneity, free flow, in the moment stuff. But good luck recalling it. A recording will show that usually it was not as good as you thought at the time.

Mostly it just makes me lazy.
 
I think removes your inhibitions, for better or worse.

There are better ways of doing that without any of the negatives, but it's hard work and lots of practice.
 
my experience ( and i had plenty back in the day) is that, as far as weed, it could often times help lower yer inhibitions/creative blocks.......help get an idea, or a riff.....or come up with a witty turn of a phrase, which one should have a tape deck rolling the whole time.

THEN......after sobered back up, listen back to it and work thru the ideas that way. jamming can be great fun buzzed, but if you record it all.....later it might not sound as good as you "remember" it.

playing live on stage is best done sober.
 
jp_nyc said:
Robert Smith claims they don’t. But he was also coked up out of his mind when he wrote Disintegration, which ended up on Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums list. And the Beatles got a lot more interesting after they started smoking pot and dropping acid. Sleep’s Dopesmoker obviously wouldn’t have happened without a tremendous intake of marijuana. Personally, I find that it varies wildly. But when I’m stuck on (non-musical) stuff during the day I sometimes do a hit or two of hash oil and it often helps, either because it lets me think differently or because it just mellows me out and helps be focus.

You’ll only know if you try. Obviously don’t do dumb shit like trying heroin.
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Hash oil...Some of the better tunes I've ever written were written in one or two sessions and under the influence,too...


Man oh man...I had no idea oil was still around???
 
Pine Apple Slim said:
At times weed may help with spontaneity, free flow, in the moment stuff. But good luck recalling it. A recording will show that usually it was not as good as you thought at the time.

Mostly it just makes me lazy.
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What I have found is that when you're stoned you come up with the creative thoughts on tape and paper and afterwards you make sense of it all and put it in proper order..

I'm still with the people here that claim that some of their best stuff has come while influenced....


Maybe that's what's wrong with music today..
 
Perhaps it's like that aged old mystery that people have talked about for ages...

When someone is drunk and they start spouting at another,is it the truth that they've been holding in,finally coming out?

Either way......It's usually something that the other hasn't heard before..................
 
tompetty said:
Man oh man...I had no idea oil was still around???
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In states where weed is legal the hash oil is incredible. Here in Colorado you can buy oil that’s almost pure cannabinoids. Milder stuff is sold in standard e-cigarette vaporizer cartridges, the strong stuff comes in a little syringe that fills reusable cartridges. It’s cheaper than alcohol—a $50 500mg cartridge can put out a couple hits a day for two months. This is why alcohol and prescription painkiller makers are lobbying so hard against decriminalization. Once weed can be grown in the southern sun on old tobacco farms the price will crash and the competing drug industries are fucked.

The solid hash products are even crazier. You want 99.9% pure THC? No problem in Denver. But that stuff is just too intense for me, I leave it to the college kids.
 
Well, I wrote my first song at 16 and have been writing ever since, never once under the influence. I'd say ti each his own, but I have been told that is a fallacy. :grin:
 
Back in college, weed was certainly the subject of a song or two.
We had one called "All out of Smoke" and another called "Thank You for the Bud" (that one had some nice CSN harmonies).
 
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