A modest proposal - Euphonogens

[Mr Wobble]

^ None of these are exactly commonly used outside of the relevant specialist areas, but:

Androphonomania - Homicidal insanity

Androphonos, androphonos - Man-slayer; a murderer, a killer.

Autophonomania -
1. An obsessive desire to commit suicide.
2. A condition in which someone is suicidal.

Pseudophonia - Suicide disguised as murder.

Erotophonophilia -
In psychiatry, a sexual perversion in which arousal and orgasm are dependent upon sacrificial killing of the partner; lust murder; sadism, rape (a crime of violence).

I still like Euphonogen/ic.

(If there's a mod reading could you please alter the thread title to remove the 'i' from Euphoniogen)

 

[invert]

^ None of these are exactly commonly used outside of the relevant specialist areas, but:

Androphonomania - Homicidal insanity

Androphonos, androphonos - Man-slayer; a murderer, a killer.

Autophonomania -
1. An obsessive desire to commit suicide.
2. A condition in which someone is suicidal.

Pseudophonia - Suicide disguised as murder.

Erotophonophilia -
In psychiatry, a sexual perversion in which arousal and orgasm are dependent upon sacrificial killing of the partner; lust murder; sadism, rape (a crime of violence).

Ah, okay, thanks. Blimey. :D

So... is there any indication (from, say, the various B&D threads here and elsewhere; or from the trip reports here or at erowid) of a consensus on which drugs are particularly noteworthy for their music enhancement? Is there any hint of structural similarities among them?

 

[azzazza !?]

edit: ^i was reminded of it through the name/title 'Androphonos' coming to mind.

anyhow, i also think its a nice term; but as others noted before, i can't really think of a drug that would specifically fall in that category in the way mdma is classified as entacto-/empathogen.

 

[Mr Wobble]

So... is there any indication (from, say, the various B&D threads here and elsewhere; or from the trip reports here or at erowid) of a consensus on which drugs are particularly noteworthy for their music enhancement? Is there any hint of structural similarities among them?

This is something I'd be very interested in. I started a thread in EADD about it.

The commonly mentioned ones are MDMA, LSD, 2C-B/C/D, ket, and mushrooms. DiPT has been mentioned - sounds like some might almost class this a Cacophonogen?.

 

[Vader]

^Ha, "cacophonogen" actually crossed my mind when I wrote that post.

 

[invert]

i also think its a nice term; but as others noted before, i can't really think of a drug that would specifically fall in that category in the way mdma is classified as entacto-/empathogen.

Oh but entactogen is a matter of degree too, isn't it? While MDMA is an entactogen par excellence, there are psychedelics that appear to have entactogenic qualities (some of the 2C-halos for example) without really being full-on consistent entactogens. Perhaps we have yet to discover the euphonogen par excellence, so all we have is various drugs that are primarily something else (psychedelic, or stimulant, or sedative), but which have mild euphonogenic properties as well. Maybe by considering whether chemical structures relate to the degree of euphonogenesis, one might be able to predict which structures might produce more clearly euphonogenic properties.

 

[Vader]

^The entactogens are at least all phenethylamines, whereas here we're talking about tryptamines, phenethylamines, even dissociatives. There just seems to be such a diverse range of chemicals being discussed here that I really don't think we can establish a structure/activity relationship with any great ease.

 

[Mr Wobble]

i also think its a nice term; but as others noted before, i can't really think of a drug that would specifically fall in that category in the way mdma is classified as entacto-/empathogen.

Depends upon your perspective. For me MDMA's euphonogenic properties are as important as (or poss even more important than) it's entactogenic and euphoric properties. I mean MDMA isn't just an entactogen; it's also a stimulant, some people feel it's very mildly psychedelic, slightly dissociative etc. and, to use the new lexicon, it has a considerable euphonogenic effect.

When describing MDMA's effects to others I generally stress it's euphoric and entactogenic/empathogenic effects and the way it just makes music sound gorgeous!

[Edit: invert beat me to it]

 

[invert]

^The entactogens are at least all phenethylamines,

alpha-methyl-tryptamine?

ETA: Oh, and I would have thought the diversity of compounds increases the likelihood of finding an association between structure and activity. The less variance a variable has, the less variance can be explained by another variable. You need variance in order to find covariance.

 

[Vader]

^Haven't done it, don't know much about it, but it's never been described to me as a entactogen. Interesting though, as it has a similar structure to the amphetamines. Still, the range of structures of the proposed euphonogens is wider.

 

[invert]

Regarding how one could investigate this with a degree of rigour... off the top of my head, I'd say that one might want to take three types of questionnaire-based measures. One could ask people to rate how good various pieces of music sounds (say on a 7 point scale) before during and after a given drug experience. As controls, one could also ask them to do the same with a range of pieces of visual art, or how tasty various foods are (to determine whether we're looking at an increased sense of beauty rather than specifically to do with sound); and one could also ask them to rate their mood (again on a 7 point scale), to check whether the effect on perceived music quality is wholly explained by mood.

 

[invert]

^Haven't done it, don't know much about it, but it's never been described to me as a entactogen. Interesting though, as it has a similar structure to the amphetamines.

See positive effects listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-Methyltryptamine , for example. Not strong evidence, but it is generally reported to be entactogenic by people on BL too. alpha-ethyltryptamine more so, perhaps.

Still, the range of structures of the proposed euphonogens is wider.

Which I would imagine would benefit any analysis (although I know little about SAR really, so I may well be wrong).

 

[Mr Wobble]

@Yerg I'm not really positing Euphonogenics as a new class of drugs (I know, my OP and the thread title are little bit misleading). Rather I am more generally interested in the music enhancing property that is exhibited to different degree across a range of drugs. Having a term that neatly describes drug induced enhancement of music seems useful to me.

And if there's a slight chance that such discussions as these might spark an interest in exploring the field of euphonogenics, then that is all to the good. I'm fairly surprised that no-one, it seems, has thought to study it! One might even learn some secrets regarding the considerable mysteries surrounding the unusual and almost uniquely human predilection for rhythms and pitched sounds.

 

[azzazza !?]

Depends upon your perspective. For me MDMA's euphonogenic properties are as important as (or poss even more important than) it's entactogenic and euphoric properties. I mean MDMA isn't just an entactogen; it's also a stimulant, some people feel it's very mildly psychedelic, slightly dissociative etc. and, to use the new lexicon, it has a considerable euphonogenic effect.

When describing MDMA's effects to others I generally stress it's euphoric and entactogenic/empathogenic effects and the way it just makes music sound gorgeous!

[Edit: invert beat me to it]

but with mdma there is a clear distinction within its classifications. there are there are both stimulants and hallucinogens that are not entactogenic.
i have yet to encounter a hallucinogenic drug that is not a euphonogen. for me, euphony is implied within the term hallucinogen. its actually one of the main reasons i use them, next to philosophical inquiries.

[edit: got beaten to it]

 

[Vader]

^I appreciate that, but even on this level I feel like we're going to run into problems. For instance, LSD is greatly "euphonogenic" to me, but this is largely as a result of the synaesthesia it produces. So do we consider LSD to be a euphonogen, or a synaesthesia-gen? This seems different to entactogenesis because that is a specific effect that we can single out, whereas euphonogenesis is so often a result of the other mental effects of a drug.

 

[Mr Wobble]

i have yet to encounter a hallucinogenic drug that is not a euphonogen. for me, euphony is implied within the term hallucinogen. its actually one of the main reasons i use them, next to philosophical inquiries.

Yes and no: the euphonogenicity is a separate component within the hallucinogenecity and the degree and quality of euphonogenicity may vary from drug. I don't find MDMA very hallucinogenic at all, but I find it profoundly euphonogenic. Likewise, mushrooms for me, are hallucinogenic, but I do not find them to be particularly euphonogenic.

All I'm proposing is that euphonogenia is a useful short hand for drug-induced-enhancement-of-musical-perception. I mean, euphonogenic is much less of a mouthful?

 

[Mr Wobble]

@Yerg - please forget Euphonogen as a distinct class or a specific label for a drug (If I could restart this thread I'd probably call it something like "Euphonogenia the phenomenon of drug-induced enhancement of musical perception". ).

I'm really more interested in euphonogenicity as a property which, of course, may have connections with synaesthesia, hallucinogenicity etc.

Yep, there is obviously a problem in separating out one effect from another euphonogenicity>synaesthesia, synaesthesia>hallucinogenicity - that's, IMO, a continuum type problem; that doesn't make it less interesting or useful to do.

 

[B9]

I think it's a valid term & ought to be used on an as needed basis - however of course a deal of subjectivity will be found to exist between substances & most likely the same substance on different occassions - set & setting & what have you. mushrooms can be wonderful to listen to music on IMO - but maybe not all the time - same with MDMA.


Jah ?

 

[invert]

This is something I'd be very interested in. I started a thread in EADD about it.

The commonly mentioned ones are MDMA, LSD, 2C-B/C/D, ket, and mushrooms. DiPT has been mentioned - sounds like some might almost class this a Cacophonogen?.

Re: DiPT, it's my view that people who experience it as cacophogenic may sometimes just be experiencing the wrong combination of dosage and music-style. Lower doses produce a partial inharmonicity, with dissonance arising from the overlay of normal and inharmonic tones; but with sufficiently high doses everything is stretched (both between complex tones and within each complex tone), such that an eerie and beautiful altered-consonance is achieved. The suppression of middle frequencies and phase shifts may make music with certain rhythmic and frequency content unpleasant or bland; but have no effect on other music. This is what I said on the subject in a trip report:

The sound of music

I do suspect that DiPT is doing something directly comparable to the visual effects of, say, 4-HO-DMT, but mapped onto the auditory cortex. The twanging FM effects, giving - at peak - all sound a sort of robotized fatness seem like the reptilian podginess that textured surfaces (faces, especially) sometimes adopt on 4-HO-DMT for me. The metallic sheen of some higher frequency sounds seems like the bright rainbowish qualities less textured (or more finely textured = high spatial frequency) surfaces can have on 4-HO-DMT.

Does music sound good on DiPT? I think it does, as much as paintings look good on 4-HO-DMT. In other words, some music sounds fantastic alien beautiful glorious; and some sounds ugly, grey, lifeless. Specifically, during this trip I'd say the music that DiP'd well was generally more high pitched, slower, hi-fidelity (no grungy guitars, please!). Pavement no, Air yes. Arcade Fire no, Pet Shop Boys, yes. Oddly, ABBA's Dancing Queen sounded almost unaltered, even during peak auditory effects.


Thoughts on disappointment, dosage, and choice of music

Of course, it may just be a matter of taste; but I do wonder if those who are disappointed with or not interested in DiPT's auditory effects on music, or even those who find them interesting but not beautiful, may be taking an insufficient dose of DiPT to elicit the more satisfying auditory effects, and thus reaching only the level I was at at t+6.30, i.e. quite distorted enough to sound dissonant and wrong, but not distorted enough to sound beautiful and right in its own way. Or perhaps, in some cases, they are attempting music during effects too intense to allow music enjoyment (post-level 3). Or alternatively, or additionally, they may be listening to the wrong music: I certainly found that some music was enhanced, and some impoverished, by the levels 2 to 3 auditory effects. (I don't mean to encourage recklessly high doses, of course; I'm just speculating as to whether there are reasons beyond personal taste that could explain the varied aesthetic response to DiP'd music.)

But aside from the beauty of the altered consonance of DiPT, I find I experience a euphonogenesis more in common with that which I have experienced on, say, MDMA, 2C-E, and BZP (pretty much all I found BZP to be good for, really). It's hard to say, but it seems that this enhanced-quality is over and above the mere aesthetic appreciation of the distortions. If someone replicated those distortions in software, I doubt I'd find them quite so delightful as I do while under the influence of DiPT.

 

[hjj]

something as simple as closing my eyes enhances music. thats besides the point though.
And in that case a blindfold could be a Euphonogen.


I would think its the skewed perception of time that makes music sound larger than life while tripping.
that is one way to look at it atleast.