Skip to main content

Listening Report: John Luther Adams

John Luther Adams is an American composer who once worked as an environmental activist. He sees the weather as metaphor which cannot be predicted. In Alaska he wanted to take into account language of the Inuit people by translating the natural experience into a spiritual one. He took natural phenomena and put it into sound due to him wanting to create a musical echo system. The choice to full focus on music was made by Adams because he had “the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world“ (Source 1).

 

            The work of Adams The place were you go to listen (2006) is a “permanent sound-and-light installation at the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, Alaska“ (Abstract Kinnear) which “resonates strongly with the geography and ecology of the composer's place of residence. The audiovisual experience is generated through a computer program that translates real-time data streams from geophysical events into sound and colour signals.“ The piece begins with the sounds of rain and drums. The drums remind me of thunder which is probably intended by the composer. The drums repeat every few seconds and a woman’s voice is added. The sound of the drum and the soft voice are contradictory which draws me under a spell and it works as a kind of hypnotization. This effect is truly calming to me. When the voice disappears the sound of thunder continues until a sound starts which reminds me of electro magnet fields, probably they are being transferred into sound.

 

 

 

 

Sources:

1.https://www.johnlutheradams.net/biography/

 

2. Adams, John Luther. The Place Where You Go To Listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBNc9dERnXw

 

3. Kinnear, Tyler. “Voicing Nature in John Luther Adams's The Place Where You Go to Listen.”Organised Sound, vol. 17, no. 3, 2012, pp. 230–239., doi:10.1017/S1355771811000434.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more