Critical listening and altered states

THC. FTW

Certainly no musician has been high...Or maybe I was stoned when I listened to A Passage to Bangkok  Fun thread by the way thanks! 

@newton_john thanks for the book reference; my library has it and I’m going to take a look.

@stuartk I’m not talking about utilizing substances in precise doses, only trying small amounts to see if one’s perceptions alter and give them a new insight into how their system sounds. It’s not more complicated than that, but too many here have taken ASC and assumed that I mean becoming sh*t-faced. That’s not it at all. It’s about stirring things up a little bit and taking another look.

@sns "Our only reference for timbre is acoustic instruments played without sound reinforcement." Not sure I agree. I’ve heard Stratocasters played through amps, live; wouldn’t that be a timbre that could serve as a reinforcement? Indeed, any electrified instrument that is recorded via a mic would then be a reference for the later-amplified sound coming out of a stereo. But, perhaps, the change in timbre is just not as critical – perhaps that’s the point, namely that there would not be "gross timbre inaccuracies" which would induce stress. 

Regarding LSD and the visualization of space, this is an interesting example insofar as it indicates another possibility for my suggestion. Not so much that one alters perception while they’re listening to audio, but that they take note of how acoustic space sounds at another time while under an ASC. Then, as you did, they can consider that angle of view later on, when they are listening to music. We gain new perspectives with ASC’s and if they can be somehow incorporated into our way of understanding things, they become resources to break out of routine judgments.

One of the most impactful and deep effect of  THC in concentrated form on me the few times i tried it listening music, was not so much  on my acoustic perception , which seems increased, but on the visual perception of the musical content meaning not as merely purely musical and auditory but as fractals and as a movie given to be seen...

 Even without THC i "see" music way more than i am able to "hear" it, because i am not a musician anyway and not musically educated as a player like stuartk, i interpreted naturally music as a visual  abstract story... think about fractals and metamorphosis of forms..

In some case , Bruckner 5 th symphony for example, i see a continuous story about man death and the afterlife...the vast geometry of the last mvt tell the story taking one by one all the thema of the first three movement recapitulating them, the first time i heard it i was strucked by a revelation, the final very long fugue is almost vision..

I will add that music is naturally, never mind acoustic and audio, an altered states of consciousness and the most universally used.

Speech is a musical gesture socially and individually synchronized with Nature... Each perception  may become creative and a dual survival strategies of isolation from Nature (society) and also participation to Nature on a higher level than immediate by creativity.