i know a lot of you guys smoke pot, don't know what else you do, but my friend and i were talkin. seems like so many of the greats have done heroin. think there's anything to that? coincidence?

yeah, they're all stupid

Heroin transforms you into a craving junkie that couldn't care less for anything but getting their heroin fix. Yes, all the greats did heroin. But dont forget that a lot of these greats are either dead from od or from suicide.
Pot doesnt do that (much)

And why is this in Guitar zone?

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has to do with good guitar playing? :P

seems like back in the day, when the best players did that, they have a whole lot of emotion in their playing. now it's mostly quick and technical. you could argue that it's still just as emotional, but i really doubt that you could compare hendrix to anybody else around now.

you are confusing lsd with heroin.

lsd makes you see colours and images
heroin makes you stupid

dont get me wrong, im not against drugs, but the best way to be a good guitarplayer is not doing heroin, because that stuff 'll kill you after it turns you into a stupid lazy sack of shit

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I was under the impression that Hendrix's drugs of choice were pot, barbiturates and LSD. I've never heard of him taking heroin. Anyway, he'd have been a great guitar player without drugs.

A lot of people think that taking drugs is going to make them a better or more creative guitar player because their heroes did drugs. It's a big misconception in my opinion. Just consider how many absolutely awful guitar players are stuck in their bedroom fucked to oblivion on heroin/pot/whatever who couldn't come up with a killer riff if they stole it off Dimebag and called it their own.

What I'm trying to say is that for every guitarist who takes drugs and becomes a legend there's a hundred guitarists who take drugs and end up in punk cover bands gigging in pubs in front of two men and a one-legged prostitute. With the clap.

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okay hendrix was a bad example for heroin specifically, but you get my point. no, i do not confuse lsd with opiates. i know quite well what they do. i was just using him as an example of drug influences. have any of you ever written music on anything? i can't say for sure that some amazing songs came from substance-inspired sources, but i've made some pretty crazy sounding things. they sound more like pink floyd tunes than anything, heh, but still.. it seems to me like my best stuff was fooling around while trippin out. i don't do any of that anymore, and it seems more of a push to get out such creative things.

Jimi didn't do herion. But..the herion gives them something to sing/write about. So when you look at it in the way that only drugs inspire them, well...its sad. How would they have been without drugs? Same thing with love/depression. You make your saddest riffs while experiencing a depression and the most beautiful when your in love. Drugs just make a new emotion for inspiration. So really its what ever inspires you that should help you wright music. But it all depends on how you look at drugs.

Yeah its more of a challenge to make "trippy" stuff while sober but concider it more rewarding when you do. Same thing with happy and sad songs also.

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hmm, in my opinion it doesnt have much to do with drug use. Maybe i'm wrong, but i cant imagine the legends only creating great songs while on something. I think they would have accomplished just about the same. As for me, being on something, though i havnt done a wide variety of drugs, never helped me play or create, it only made me slip up. But i still think that they would have made their music either way.

yea when i'm stoned and I play guitar with my band I usually just start laughing and can't play until I stop then withen a min or so i'm laughing and hungry. I can't concentrate on guitar haha.

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thanks for fixin the thread title.. ya, i know jimi was into pot mostly. once again, just usin him as an exampl for drugs. i think it's more rewarding when i come up with good stuff not on that stuff. maybe my hard time is more due to a lack of excitement in my life. i'm settling down a lot more than i used to be, so that could be it. what about even pot though? i dont know many friends who play guitar that aren't pot heads :P

i think i play better when i'm high ! it makes me flow everything together better.

maybe you think you play better because you think that your ability increases when you're under the influence of something.
i can't say, 'cause i've never been under the influence of anything, but you probably play better 'cause you feel more confident that you'll come up with something when you're stoned.

so think about that, the next time you're stoned....

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i dont know if the legends have done their greatest song high or sober, im sure they werent on heroin when they did - its a too big effort. cocaine (crack) is more used by metal guitarists, for it increases ability and speed.

personnaly i like to play stoned or drunk
i dont really play when im on shrooms or acids - i might try it during a concert
i play better when im sober but i have more creativity when im high

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--------JUST SO EVERYONE KNOWS-------------
Jimi died from over dosing on sleeping pills, not a heroin over-dose.

And I think that the reason all the bands from the 60's sound the way they do is because when your're trippin on acid you can "see sounds and hear colors". So thats why most of their shit is colorful, tiedye t-shirts etc etc. Now I only tryed the shit once, and though I'd never do it again I can see how people would have devine "experiances" while tripping, and I can tell you that music definently effefts your mood. Myself I was listening to well Im not going to tell you because this was 3 years ago. Lets just say it was a band of faggots that wore masks and their name sounded like dicksnot, and its not that anything happened but I was paranoid as fuck, so my friend tommy put some incubus in (yeah stfu) and my mood totally changed and the trip was a much better experiance.

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i thought jimi died from choking on his own vomit, actually. but i guess it was the sleeping pills that caused that

ya, i never played as well when i was stoned as far as control goes, but the stuff i played was very moody.

atif i hear ya, but i think it's a bit more than that. hallucinogens (even mild ones such as pot) do change your state of mind and effect creativity and abstraction, among other things like auditory and visual senses.

they definitely allow music to get right down to your soul. i tripped out on 2c-e once and stayed on the couch listening to abbey road for a very long time, totally content. some real bad music makes it horrible, though. try listening to bob marley's legend when you're stoned

Nope. He choked on his own vomit while asleep after taking a dangerous mix of barbiturates and alcohol at a perty he attended with his then girlfriend. Whether he took the downers knowingly or had his drink spiked is a favourite subject of many conspiracy theorists.

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I recorded myself once when i saw drunk, and the next day I played it, and it was soooo sloppy, so I don't play drunk... Hell I fallow Dime as an example play first drinks after, you sound better sober then drunk, and as for my friends who play stoned, they would be 100% better if they don't jam, gig, or play stoned.

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What a dumb topic. If you wanna see what Herion does to you look at the failure Phil had made of himself with his lame Superdope ritual band...

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Drugs make you THINK your making amazing music. As soon as you STOP taking whatever it is your takin', most of the crap you make/record turns out to be the most aweful shit ever. Hendrix was just plain good. Theres no way you can prove that drugs had any influence in his music.

Pete Sandoval from Morbid Angel said the EXACT same thing in an interview. When he quit drinking his performance was significanly better. (as quoted by him)

check it out here if you want http://www.voicesfromthedarkside.de...morbidangel.htm

Maybe not, but they influenced his gigantic ego.

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what i was really wondering is more about writing music, not playing shows while wasted. more interestingly crazy stuff comes to mind when my state is altered. of course i'm not going to be able to play as well once it's already written, but it seems to help writing.

exactly

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more like FEEL

Well, yes they give you creativity when writing music. Anyone who says they don't either hasn't used them or had a bad experience. BUT....there is an alternative if you don't want to harm your body or if you can't get drugs. Its called astral projection or lucid dreaming. When on drugs you are really too messed up to play live or even sit and write with your music. For me anyways, I hear a meledy and remember that then write it sober. Same thing in a lucid drem, you can hear meledies and but obviously you can't play them in real life but you remember the music.

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ah wow i never tried that. i'd gotten into lucid dreaming.. kept a journal last year and started to get them, but didn't really like much other than flying (which is sweet haha wow) since i've got my sex life taken care of, and that was just about the only perk that i could think of (except obviously stuff like flying, 360 vision, etc) when i started reading about it. i think ill ressurect my old journal and work on that, though.

have you actually done that? it never seemed to make me more creative or anything. maybe i could come up with some sweet stuff that way, though. thanks for the tip.