The Steel Guitar Forum

After reading several news articles about college students taking ritalin to ace tests, it came to mind that there must be some pickers that have tried it.

God knows we've collectively shovelled enough crosstops down over the years... Let alone those old timers and their "Turnarounds" and "Black Beauties"..

In an interesting article Neurofeedback was mentioned as being more effective, but Im not sure if the webpage it came from was some sort of cult...

Seriously now.

I've read studies where some 70 percent of musicians use some kind of mind altering drug to enhance their performance, including but not limited to ALCOHOL, Prozac, Beta blockers, meth, caffeine, pot, etc. The studies I read tonite were done on professional orchestra musicians, and were heavy toward beta blockers, prozac, valium, and ALCOHOL of course...

Being drug tested regulary at work and not drinking for 26 years, I miss smoking a bowl every now and then. Haven't even done that for 15 years..

I never had any luck with crosstops or other stimulants. I just made mistakes faster,(though it made driving 24+hours between county fairs and casinos easier during a couple of my "professional years"...)

I notice when I've had Vicodin for tooth pain and have played, that things flowed easier, and I've noticed that minimal Ibuprofen seems to quicken my reflexes, and at least makes my poor old hands feel much less encumbered.

I know with Iburofen, your hearing is affected, and I notice theat taking more than one small dosage makes my ears ring and of course Oxycontin can by itself cause deafness.

And of course as Dave Grafe pointed out, ALCOHOL immediately nearly paralyzes the tiny muscles that work as attenuators for your eardrums, thereby taking away natural protection from noise damage.


I drink Monster Energy Drinks from time to time, but I know B6 can build up, so I don't overdo..

Actually it's an interesting subject, and I'd like to know more about others' experiences. Especially away from the old traditional Booze, Pot and Crank....



EJL

I like the trace minerals in seaweed.

Fortunately you can get that at any 7/11 here.

Ibuprofen in small goes to cut the arthitus, pain,
but not affect the ears.

And Alkaline balancing suppliments to sharpen and balance the body chemistry.

Been there done that for many other "things", but I don't miss them much.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 11 March 2006 at 03:24 AM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 11 March 2006 at 05:59 PM.]</p></FONT>

When I first started back in the 'early '60s, it was pink-hearts (semi-legal benzedrine) and a few were even doing "plastic bullets", those little Vicks nasal inhalers were also full of pure benzedrine! Guys would break open the plastic capsule, and cut the cotton wad in half, and then put that in a cup of coffee or a Coke. Truckers could drive for 3 days, and musicians could jam for 5 with that kind of stimulant cocktail!

'Course, it's not only musicians, but everybody - <u>every single one of us</u>, that's "hooked". Everyone gets high on something, be it alky, coffee, drugs, sex, exercise, steroids, cigs, pain killers, religion, food, info, money, power, and so on and so on...ad infinitum. Inspiration, it seems, comes from deep inside us, but some "key", some external motivator, always has to be used to unlock the door so that we can access it.

Interesting subject. It makes me think of The Beatles and what it took to come up with tunes like The Walrus and those lyrics were really wild. In the 70's I played 6 nights a week and some matinees as well because it was my living. At night I took 3 doobies with me, every night. One for on the way, one for on the break and one for on the way home. Sound familiar to anyone? Also there was a lot of coffee and cigarettes. I didn't realize that in my teens I was a caffiene freak then by drinking over a dozen 16 ounce pepsis a day and did that through the 80's. It's just a habit period. I never had sleeping problems until the last ten years but have fought with it ever since. As for pills and all the other stuff, I never indulged in that. I did take some white crosses while driving back from Myrtle Beach once. I had a bunch of them in my watch pocket in my jeans and they got all crushed up so when I started dozing they were just powder by then. I just poured some of it in coffee and took off. It was a 600 hundred mile trip back to Nashville and when I got in town I drove up to the bar and got out and set it all up right there and started practicing! I was flying low that day. As for Ibuprofen and stuff like that I carry a variety of Alka Seltzer, aspirins, and whatever I may happen to need while I drive. Until last October, I was driving over 100,000 miles a year in a van doing deliveries day and night so when I needed something I didn't have to stop. These days when I have a weekend gig to play, I try to get a two hour nap before I leave and always take coffee with me. I never drink at a gig anymore and the pot days are over. I could smoke that stuff when I played the drums but I can't think and concentrate at all if I do that stuff and attempt to play steel guitar. The last time I remember doing that I had a fill in guitar player riding with me to the gig and he fired one up on the way and I drove past the exit to get off and then when I realized where I was and got turned around I went right past the club! I couldn't hit a bull in the a$$ with a bass fiddle that night. I did try some Focus Factor a year or so ago and it did help just a little with my focus some. These days I drink coffee in the mornings and the rest of the day it's water so hopefully by night I can sleep. Caffiene has been the one vise I don't want to part with.

I think of Vicoden as basicly heroin and ritalin as basicly speed. Nice new packages for our old friends. I have nothing against them and they do have some great legit uses. I try not to mess with any of that stuff no matter who is selling it though.

I do love my coffee in the morning and I like a beer after the gig . My playing goes downhill after an hour or so if I have a beer durring the set.

------------------
Bob
upcoming gigs
My Website




<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 11 March 2006 at 06:49 AM.]</p></FONT>

My doctor just prescribed a mild Beta Blocker to deal with a slightly high blood pressure condition that was not getting better on its own. It has a very minimal relaxing effect. I played my first gig since taking them and found that i was more relaxed and felt like I played harder passages better during the show. I definitely noticed a difference. I was kind of like having one or two beers before a show without the loss of coordination...

Suffered from a couple dozen kidney stones about 5 yrs. back, had to Vicadin up for a solid month, every 4 hrs,every day-5 or 6 a day! It didnt help my playing at all. The CD I had posted here last year had 10 or 11 songs, I had to redo every guitar solo except one!
Nowadays it's Atacand(BP), Nexium(stomach),Crestor(cholesterol), and some nasty powder I have to take because my gall bladder was removed, none of those drugs have effected my playing. JP

Eric, This is a very interesting topic and one that I have been wondering about for a while. I have been without outside "stimulants" for about 20 years and have to admit that I can't reach my muse. When I sit down to play, it is mechanical. It reflects all the anxiety and stress that I live with in my life. Back in earlier days when I was carefree and single and took "stimulants" I very often felt the music flow even though mechanically it was often not perfect. I can remember several times being one with the music and those are some of my favorite memories. I would like to recapture that without going back to "stimulants". I now drink rarely and recently gave up caffeine.
I would be interested in natural ways of contacting my muse. Have any of you tried yoga or transcendental meditiation (I don't mean the hokey stuff from the 60's)?

Karlis

Sometimes I'll take a Nodoze with a can
of Red-Bull. I've also been taking alot
'Saw Palmetto', but that's for something else.


GB<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Brandin on 11 March 2006 at 09:16 AM.]</p></FONT>

For me it's always been pot, but due to a medical conditionn I've had to stop smoking it.

The problem is not pot per se, but the tar that is found in all smoke. The medication I'm taking for the condition interacts with the tar to form a carcnogen.

The doctor told me I could make brownies and eat it, make tea and drink it, or put it in a suppository if I chose, but I can not smoke it, or anything else, or even be near people who are smoking.

I've reluctantly joined the ranks of the clean and sober.

------------------
My web site

*<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 12 March 2006 at 04:22 AM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>Our government enforcers are now prosecuting and jailing some of those same individuals for using the same substances that the government condoned and issued during war-time eras. </SMALL>

The problem with the war on drugs is that it targets undividual users in addition to major suppliers.

People who make amd sell drugs like heroin and methamphetimine are criminals who deserve presecution, but people who use them are victims who should receive treatment to help them stop.

I think pot should be legalized and regulated the same way akcohol is. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Mike Perlowin on 11 March 2006 at 12:22 PM.]</p></FONT>

Hmm. Lots of responses.

What spurred me to ask is now, learning tele licks etc for a couple honest hours a day, I'm right up against the "learning ceiling" like I remember a long time ago on PSG.

You listen to a lick, or even a group of three or four notes, and it takes the LONGEST time to get it RIGHT.

Take the first intro part of Four WHeel Drive. I remember having BC show it to me, and my thinking "thats easy enough", and then when the picks and bar hit the strings, the mind turns to jello. Then, slowly, note by note, the information goes in. Working at it, repeating it say a hundred times in a week, and it's "In there". Every pull off, every bar bounce, and every cross over note is always the same, year after year.

I"m not looking for a short cut, but I see others with a shortened learning curve. I always have. It seems to be like I've had a form of "ADD", and simply played through it with hours, days, years, and finally decades of "Rote".

On Guitar, I played the "Travis style" part on Brad Paisley's "Make a Mistake" double slow on my music proggy, figured out the two diminshed chords, realised the part where he used his G bender, and went to the "rote zone". It took TWO WEEKS of every day, two hours, to get the sections strung together. (Oh, and those "hard to figure" last four chords are simply the chords he plays plainly and clearly for the "intro" Am/Gm/Fm/G7.)

At that point, and no sooner, I find my mind flowing with my fingers, and seamlessness finally appears. Then it's usually 2200 hrs and time for the sack.

Further, without weekly music gigs, it's all for nothing, as without them, my mind just doesn't pay attention more than thirty seconds at a time.

On the "learning curve" a dozen doubts crop up, a daily fight to unsnarl old fingers that have been unhooking and transferring dump box trailers, shovelling them out, a half hour nap, a weak Advil, and an hour of playing "Merc Blues" and the intro to "Hummingbird" to even get past the "muscle thing".

I notice a "State" where my vision is blurred, I am internally humming a monotone, and my fingers are playing faster than I have before.

I only mention the tele, because it's been a good insight into "Learning".

Before my trip to Nashville, I took Bobbe Seymore's "Thanks a Lot" and did it the same way. It took about a month to get all the sections strung together, and I never did get to play it COMPLETELY through with any of my weekend bands. I think most of it's "still there", because once drilled in, it's there for a long time.

I'm not seriously thinking in investing in a "feedback machine" at my local Scientology Center, but theres GOT to be a credible, drug free method of tapping into the "learning curve" that's not so damn frustrating.

I have entertained thoughts however of trying a ritalin tab from one of the parents of a dozen kids on my block tht must shovel them into their kids instead of raising them the old fashioned way.

Vikes are basically heroin?

I heard that Bayer™ developed it as a non-destrucive form of opium and called it "hero-in" because of the 'heroic' development it brought forth..

In my estimation, alchohol is worse. Probably due to the casual societal acceptance..

I do like those energy drinks. There are things in them like Inositol, though, that are used in meth, that make me wonder. Maybe mixing some sudafed, weed killer, and unleaded gas....

Thank god that all the self prescriptions over the years didn't kill me, like they did many of my friends.. Mostly booze.

Anyhow maybe a self hypnosis, or mental readiness routine will become available.

In the meantime, it's time to plug in and play. I FINALLY got a weekend off, and need to MP3 some of the last months gig trax and practice.

After picking up a Squier Tele CustomII last week, I can finally quit buying CIC teles now that I've got five of them...

I've noticed that buying guitars interferes with the learning curve greatly. With PSGs costing 5 grand or more, it's not quite as much as a problem for me.



EJL<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Eric West on 11 March 2006 at 12:24 PM.]</p></FONT>

I found that baked banana peals combined with ground up ten day old socks gives me a good edge. I have a tendency to scratch my underarms like Chatter the chimpanze though.

Cool, Kevin! What are you on right now?

I wouldn't mess with Ritalin. I don't like the adverse effects that I observe in some of my students (who "have to" take it). It may help their focus, but it appears that they can't use a broad spectrum of problem solving techniques (maybe like "seeing" a new fretboard position that you wouldn't otherwise).

For the last 8 years or so, I take a vitamin pill per day, called "Mental Benefits", with a high-fiber diet. It does help a little in keeping my mind and memory active. I have to answer 60+ technical questions every day with 100% accuracy and no flinch (at 55). My students expect nothing less. I'm also on my feet all day and use energy.

(I also believe) having to perform a mathematical calculation is no different than planning a bar/pedal/knee move. Muscle memory is one thing, but (again, I believe) an uncluttered mind brings experimentation to life.

I have a long way to go, but I can still recall keyboard moves, guitar and horn riffs that I used 25 years ago, and adapt them to steel. My problem is that it will be years before I can play everything that I hear.

A consistent diet works for me. I do like to drink a cup of coffee before playing & recording any instrument. I guess I believe that "muscle memory" needs to interact with "thought memory", to really expand one's "mental library". For that reason I try to protect my thought memory.

Mike

Eric,

What a wonderful piece of introspective writing! If you ever get sick of that learning curve ( or even if you don't), I sense at least a couple of really good short stories buried in there somewhere.

Seriously.

PK

<SMALL>Our law enforcement personnel are now prosecuting and jailing some of those same individuals for using the same substances that the government condoned and issued during war-time eras.</SMALL>

Yeah like LSD.



EJL<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Eric West on 11 March 2006 at 12:32 PM.]</p></FONT>

Having been a "full participant" in the 60's, 70's and 80's, in recreational pharmacology, I do have some history. About 13 years ago, my darling informed me that she couldn't have a relationship with an addict. "It went or she went". It went.

I get nervous when I'm playing, especially if it's a solo concert of my compositions. I could always tell how nervous I was by my tone, even if I wasn't aware of it. My tone would be "choked". So the nerves affected my hands the most and as the playing got worse, the nerves would increase, in a downward spiral.

My doctor suggested Inderal (propranolol). His other clients would take one, when they had to pitch a script and couldn't afford to not be in "top shape". If I'm really nervous, I'll take 20mg (anything over that and I feel a bit high), otherwise I'll take a half, just to take the edge off.

Chas. That's one of the things they mentioned that's extensively used in orchestras in the article I linked to.

Interesting.

I still get the biggest kick out of those that "take a couple shots or a beer" "unwind" or "get the edge off" and then rail against "drug use"...

Alcohol is IMHO the most destructive drug man has come up with.

Gotta run. I'm going to the music store...



EJL

I've read that Sharon Isbin has sometimes used beta blockers, and my personal guitar guru, says he's tried 'em a time or two. I'm not sure if they increase the learning curve or not, though.
I have a lifelong 'scrip for 5mg. Valium, due to an old neck injury. If I take one, and then start playing, I notice more "life" in my playing after an hour or so. BUT, if I DON'T take one, I STILL notice life in my playing after an hour or so---Other than that, and an occaisional glass of wine, I'm clean, unless I play a gig in a smoky bar .

I got a great idea for a Country song (unless it's been done already).

Rid-o-Lynn

"I gotta concentrate on gettin' rid-o-Lynn".

------------------
-johnson

hey mike, i have a buddy who is a rather regular pot smoker who uses a vaporizer, which just gets hot enough to rid the plant matter of the thc, which is of course the psychoactive ingredient in pot. so my point is that there is no smoke involved, just the stuff that makes you feel funny...you may ask your doctor about this if you want to fall off the wagon..

...oh, never mind...<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Pat Burns on 11 March 2006 at 04:51 PM.]</p></FONT>

Practice, repetitive practice, provides neurofeedback of the best kind when the phrase finally become automatic. I have no use for mind-altering drugs.