Culture - Just one more to calm the nerves ...

[Lunar Loops]

Classical music and drug use.....an interesting look from the perspective of an 'insider'. This appeared in The Guardian (UK):

Just one more to calm the nerves ...

Classical musicians are not paragons of virtue - but are recent tales of drink and drug abuse in the pit realistic, asks oboeist Blair Tindall

Thursday June 5, 2008
The Guardian

Professional classical musicians are a glamorous, vulnerable and largely voiceless population. They sweep on stage in black tie and gowns, then quietly go home; often, we know almost nothing about their lives outside their performance. But this week a lesser known aspect of those seemingly decorous lives has come to light, after a horn player for Simon Rattle's Berlin Philharmonic admitted to drinking before performances to calm his nerves. "You go for tranquilisers or beer," Klaus Wallendorf told a documentary film-maker. "With me it was beer. Then you drink two beers and it goes smoothly so you think you should do it all the time." The revelation has prompted further admissions, and German tenor Roland Wagenführer expressed concerns about drug abuse in the opera world. So does classical music have a drink-and-drugs problem?
Let's start with full disclosure. I am a professional musician - an oboeist - and have performed with four major orchestras in the US, including the New York Philharmonic. Like many people my age (I'm 48), I've tried marijuana and Valium in the past. Today, I drink alcohol on a social basis, as well as beta blockers, which are prescribed by my doctor, and which I take for performance anxiety once or twice a year.
That's not so shocking, is it? Despite my musical accomplishments, I am a normal person who addresses various challenges like anyone else. Yet some would label me a troubled substance abuser, and say that classical musicians are trying to one-up Amy Winehouse.
First, let's dissect the effect of various drugs, and consider why classical musicians would want to take them. Alcohol, tranquilisers, marijuana, and beta blockers have dramatically different applications and effects, many of which are undesirable for musicians. Musicians are not exempt from alcoholism, and it affects performance in a negative way. Classical musicians rely on minute technique and quick response time; alcohol only dampens these skills, and although initially it might ameliorate stage fright, once on stage, drunkenness only amplifies terror. The violinist Nigel Kennedy may have a reputation as a hellraiser, but even he says he would only smoke or drink after a concert - never before. "Performing under the influence of alcohol or dope would be cheating the audience," he told Focus magazine in Germany last month. I have seen, on rare occasions, musicians drinking pre-concert, and it never works out well.
Cocaine is a drug only the most successful musicians use - because it's expensive. (Newsflash: working-class musicians don't earn big.) In small amounts, cocaine does seem to enhance confidence, which, depending on how much preparation you've put in, could be a good thing - or highly embarrassing when it comes to reading the reviews the next morning. I do know musicians who use it while performing, but they are a tiny minority.
Tranquilisers like Valium have similar consequences to alcohol: they compromise technique and response time. Still, some people are prescribed these drugs for medical reasons, so it's difficult to separate the "abusers" from the legitimate patients.
Few people use marijuana these days. In general, musicians want and need to be mentally acute. Pot doesn't fit the bill. Furthermore, one of the drug's main symptoms is paranoia, which doesn't go well with stage fright.
Finally we come to beta blockers, a class of heart medications that treat blood pressure, angina and migranes. Since a 1965 Lancet article explored their use for stage fright, they've also been widely prescribed for musicians, public speakers, and even surgeons who must steady their hands.
Beta blockers are not recreational drugs. They do not affect cognitive abilities, but instead block adrenaline-like chemicals in the human system. For a violinist, this means performance can feel like practice, with no bouncing bow or slippery fingers.
An article in the Times yesterday reported that there is a "black market" for beta blockers among classical musicians. But these are legal drugs - taken for medical reasons by as many as 10% of the world's (and therefore any orchestra's) population; they are routinely prescribed for stage fright.
As a teenager, I suffered debilitating stage fright. When I went to college, I asked the conducting staff to assign me to pit orchestras, instead of onstage groups. And so I asked my doctor for a prescription for beta blockers.
On the subway in New York in 1986, I took my first dose of Inderal, a beta blocker, some 45 minutes before an audition. It seemed miraculous. Although I still felt nervous, my hands didn't shake as usual, I wasn't gasping for air and my mind remained clear. I played exactly as I had meticulously prepared to do. I won the job, and went on to play a Carnegie Hall debut recital, record a Grammy-nominated CD, and hold a solo position with four major Broadway productions.
Beta blockers are not a class of drug that's subject to abuse. No one would want to overdose: I once took too much (which I later learned was only a quarter of my elderly mother's daily prescription) and the boring performance that ensued made me commit to smaller doses from then on.
It always seems surprising to audiences that classical musicians are like any other cross section of society - subject to the same joys, sorrows, and misbehaviour. Yes, some musicians are alcoholics. Some are stoners, who stumble through life on pot, middling about on the worst possible gigs, ones that barely support them. Some lose everything in the wake of cocaine and crack abuse.
I knew a beautiful blonde cellist in New York in the 1980s, who was married, owned a gorgeous apartment overlooking Central Park, and landed a chair in Phantom of the Opera, which is playing two decades later. Yet she surrendered to cocaine, and then crack. She died three years ago after battling Aids for a decade, leaving behind a young son. She was a stellar musician, but also an ordinary human being with demons like anyone else. Three years ago, I published a book about drugs and classical music, Mozart in the Jungle. On my book tour, a journalist asked me to clarify why "musicians are more noble than other people". Where did he get such an idea? Although most of us don't end up in dire circumstances, we, like anyone else, are just people. We're tempted. We say yes or no to drugs. But, because of our discipline, we most often say no: drugs and impairment are not worth risking a lifetime of practice.

[Heretic.Ape.]

Come on, it's music. Music and drugs: like peanut-butter and jelly. Don't care if you're a metal guitarist, a jazz sax player, or a classical flautist. It's MUUUSIC!

[norcolepsy]

Originally Posted by Heretic.Ape.

Come on, it's music. Music and drugs: like peanut-butter and jelly. Don't care if you're a metal guitarist, a jazz sax player, or a classical flautist. It's MUUUSIC!

hmm..true to an extent, but classical really doesn't leave as much room for heavy recreational use as does other genres of music. Sure, it's easy for a musician to smoke a bunch of pot and improvise jazz or write pop music..but getting rock n' roll wasted before a classical peice? playing four 30 minute movements of precomposed classical music constantly making dramatic transitions and so fourth? pssh, good luck. if anything one better double his dose of gingko biloba.

[TMM]

Originally Posted by norcolepsy

hmm..true to an extent, but classical really doesn't leave as much room for heavy recreational use as does other genres of music. Sure, it's easy for a musician to smoke a bunch of pot and improvise jazz or write pop music..but getting rock n' roll wasted before a classical peice? playing four 30 minute movements of precomposed classical music constantly making dramatic transitions and so fourth? pssh, good luck. if anything one better double his dose of gingko biloba.

Improvising jazz is harder than playing a classical piece you know, as far as I'm concerned.

[Heretic.Ape.]

I didn't say drugs helped all performance (watch some Doors footage some time--even psychedelic rockers can be too fucked up), just that drugs and music is no surprise.

[Ididnotinhale]

Hmm, swim thinks that playing and learning a classical piece is more difficult. This is probably because swim has spent a lot more time improvising jazz than playing classical music.

Swim has played a lot of music when high and a lot of time while sober. When playing in front of anyone swim would much rather be sober. Except for maybe some propranolol which he has a script for. (much like what was said in the article)

Swim hates how all of his friends think that they must get high to write music or play well, which is bull sh&t.

Swim believes that the best "medication" for writing music is severe depression. All of swims best songs have been written during the worst times of his life.

[norcolepsy]

Originally Posted by Ididnotinhale

Hmm, swim thinks that playing and learning a classical piece is more difficult. This is probably because swim has spent a lot more time improvising jazz than playing classical music.

Swim has played a lot of music when high and a lot of time while sober. When playing in front of anyone swim would much rather be sober. Except for maybe some propranolol which he has a script for. (much like what was said in the article)

Swim hates how all of his friends think that they must get high to write music or play well, which is bull sh&t.

Swim believes that the best "medication" for writing music is severe depression. All of swims best songs have been written during the worst times of his life.

Amen. eloquently put my friend.

@TMM- I am not familiar with your musical background and perhaps it could be different for some people (I once knew a kid who was classically trained since he was born and yet the kid couldn't have a jam session with me), but what you say, IMO, is very false. I am an avid jazz player myself, and understand the mechanics of its style. That said, it is not terribly difficult to improvise jazz. Study all of the main chord voicings (especially the jazz chords) and learn some of the techniques that make jazz, jazz (chromatics, etc) and you'll soon understand the mystique of jazz players playing beautiful music on the spot.

On the other hand, properly learning classical pieces-especially challenging ones-is a true workout on the brain. to take a step back, jazz music still can be considered a sub genre of 'pop'. this is because of the song structures, chord progressions, etc. classical is nothing of the sort. it (generally) is making constant time sig. changes and modulation throughout. it's also not rare to see musical pieces well over an hour, all of which are 100% precomposed. This means that everything in classical (competitive performance atleast) must be played to a T, whereas jazz improv gives you many options. for example, each chord you are going to have the choice of notes of any of that specific chord's voicing, along with several other notes borrowed from the appropriate mode or scale.

The point of this mindless rant is not to say classical is better. fuck no, jazz music pleases me much more. It's just simply not practical to get fucked up before classical performances because it will make the performance worse..whereas pop music is watered down enough to the point where drugs could, in fact, improve the music being played- though that is a whole different debate all together.

[TMM]

Originally Posted by norcolepsy

@TMM- I am not familiar with your musical background and perhaps it could be different for some people (I once knew a kid who was classically trained since he was born and yet the kid couldn't have a jam session with me), but what you say, IMO, is very false. I am an avid jazz player myself, and understand the mechanics of its style. That said, it is not terribly difficult to improvise jazz. Study all of the main chord voicings (especially the jazz chords) and learn some of the techniques that make jazz, jazz (chromatics, etc) and you'll soon understand the mystique of jazz players playing beautiful music on the spot.

This is true, but I was thinking more of the further reaches of jazz, ie. modal jazz with lots of key changes. Think Allan Holdsworth. A whole different level of skill, IMO.

Perhaps I should have qualified what I said. Of course it can be very easy to improvise jazz, but depending on what approach you take and who you're playing with, it can also be much, much harder. Hell, I don't even like jazz, but I respect the insane knowledge/musicianship that some of it requires.