chemicals and producing music

[oblioblioblio]

Hi guys and girls... long post so bear with me... this thread is hopefully to start a discussion on this issue that will hopefully be a helpful and interesting resource for some of us producers.

First up, I'd like to say that I'm not trying to say that any kind of behaviour regarding use of chemicals is good or bad, that's for people to decide individually... everybody is different, but I would like to say that this is an issue for everyone of us. As whether we like it or not, chemicals play a massive role in what we do everyday, even if we don't notice ourselves. Our brains and bodies are tightly controlled systems and chemicals and hormones play a massive role in regulating this system... and everything we do, from listening to music to making love creates changes in these systems by releasing different chemicals.

The reason why I think this is an important discussion on a forum about producing music, is that what we are doing by creating music is designing a personal system to control some of these chemical changes in other people, and from controlling these chemical changes, we can create things like atmosphere, rhythm and emotion. Obviously this isn't what we think about when we're playing with our machines, but this is fundamentally what is happening on a cellular level.

There are quite a few reasons why I think this would be a useful and interesting discussion. First up, for me personally, and I'm sure for many others, it's interesting to know how people use chemicals to make music, from someone who drinks coffee to wake up in the morning, to someone who comes home from a party with pupils like saucers and tries to turn those happy feelings into something that will last longer than the next couple of hours.

Another, more important reason, is that I think sharing this information would be beneficial to all different people. Everyone has been on a different walk of life, and I'm sure they have something different to contribute to this discussion that other people would benefit from reading about. For example, I studied Psychology for a while, and picked up some interesting information along the way. I learned about a group of chemicals called 'Nootropics' which are basically futuristic brain vitamins... and these have been quite kind to me as a producer, helping me to interface with the languages that some of my computer programs use, and also treating my brain and body very kindly indeed while I was at it. I started a thread that's now in General Discussion if you'd like to know a bit more (mostly it's just a bit of an overview, but maybe it would be worth putting some of the information about what they do into this thread).

Hmmm, maybe this isn't something that people want to talk about, or feel would be worth talking about, but lets see!

peace, Mark.

[SHAP]

I never used drugs before so i can´t tell you alot about it. But I know many people consuming and producing some good stuff. Still, i don´t think it has something to do with the drugs. I belive that a good producer should be able to use his brain without any chemical help, but this is only my opinion

[theory]

I agree whit shap,but in my case i would rather light up a joint and make music than whit out anything...a just have more inspiration, whit beer or any kind of alcohol i cant do anything good, if i drink to much i end up whit a loop that i listen for 10 min and than go file -save-close session:) i tryed whit mushrooms but it was even worst:) as for real chemicals, like extasy or speed, i used them on partys, but im trying to stop whit that, because i started to dislike myselfe on that...
but i think that the majority of people will produce better music whit just one joint than whit nothing:)

[oblioblioblio]

At Shap, part of my point is that this isn't just about what we would call 'drugs'... pretty much everything can affect the human chemical system, from getting up late to eating a nice sandwich... but yeah, probably chamicals like weed and ecstacy are gonna be the main discussion here.

I can see the group opinion here being 'each to his own', which would be about right.

Theory... even weed, for me is a problem. It makes pretty much anything sound good to me, so I decided to be more careful using it. Plus when you've smoked enough in an evening you get that burnt out feeling, and you sure as sh!t aren't gonna be doing any hard work then. heheheh. Plus it's easy to get to a point where the only time your music sounds good is when you're stoned, so you start to think that to make your music good you need to smoke. I've been there a few times and it's not so fun for being productive.

Never tried producing with mushrooms, but I'd like to try it one day when I'm really comfortable with my machines, maybe in a live setting or something. Way off from that now though.

The way I see things like weed now, is that your musical world is like a map in a computer game. At the start of the game everything is blacked out and you can't see it... you gotta explore this map when you're sober, and then you can use things like weed to make the make the total area bigger, but it means you've got more sober exploring to do. I dunno if this makes sense to anyone... maybe it was just an idea that only good when I was stoned. heheheh.

[VanillaCamilla]

i used to smoke bomb twice a day and i got to the point where i couldn't produce or get any inspiration without a little bit a dank in my system.

i smoked so much that i would get paranoia attacks beyond comfort and it actually prohibited me from production, but one day i just decided to stop all that, stop my dependence on the treez and i did just that.

i dont smoke no more, im proud not too...maybe in the future, when i've got balance in my life, i'll start smoking that herb like ya never heard son.

[Robot Criminal]

Theory... even weed, for me is a problem. It makes pretty much anything sound good to me, so I decided to be more careful using it. Plus when you've smoked enough in an evening you get that burnt out feeling, and you sure as sht aren't gonna be doing any hard work then. heheheh. Plus it's easy to get to a point where the only time your music sounds good is when you're stoned, so you start to think that to make your music good you need to smoke. I've been there a few times and it's not so fun for being productive.

´
even if I absolutely don't want to agree, ur totally on the money with this statement
it is what it is.

[plaster]

Weed and music production are definately out for me, because I never managed to get anything productive. I knew to spend countless hours doing a 5 second loop over and over again and it never turned out the way i wanted to be. On the writing note, i think emotions can be best interpreted if you are aware of what's happening really inside you, not because of fake feelings triggered by *insert stimulans here*. It's the same with E's...your worst enemy could be your dearest friend, but when the influence burns out you are left with cold reality. I try to make music as aware as i can be, because it shines for others when they are listening. It's an vibration that can be felt universaly and it represents your inner state of mind. That's probably the reason why i dislike cold music, without any emotion at all. Some might not agree but our daily techno could use more emotion, things would come around shortly.

[Torque]

Now this is the type of topic i like

I figured out after a while that it was not a good idea to make a habit of creating music on drugs. The emotion that comes out of you is tainted by the chemical you took beforehand. You ever made something while you were all fucked up and then came back to it sober and thought to yourself "it sounded so awesome last night but now it sounds like a giant pile of sh!t".

In order for me to get untainted emotion out in my music i have to do it sober. I believe what you do when you make a track is float something similar to a signal out into the cosmos and certain people are tuned to your frequency while others are not. I'm not trying to reach a bunch of fucked up people with my signal because anything sounds a little better when you're stoned.

I understand what your talking about by inducing a chemical release in the brain with music but i believe there's something a step beyond that. I took my cue from Nikola Tesla when he stated that everything in the universe is made up of frequency. All we are doing in the end is playing with resonant frequencies when we're making music. When people relate a certain key or scale or mode to sound a certain way like sad, happy, ominus etc.... it's because the sound of certain frequencies together and the way they interfere with each other resonate with the way the human brain sends out signals thereby causing it to release chemicals that fool it into thinking or feeling the way the music is meant to portray. The people that seem to be the best at making music are those who are more open minded to the thoughts of other people and can see an argument from both sides.

I believe music is a spiritual practice as much as it is a physical one.

P.S.
I am not a scientist so i have no idea if this is the way it works but it's the way i like to think of it working. I hope my rambling made sense to somebody out there.