Sonic Revelations, Sonic Revolutions

I wasn’t at class on Monday. I do not know what was covered, so I’m just going to write about John Luther Adams. At this point, he is by far my favorite composer we have listened to. I’ve listened through all of “The Far Country,” “Earth and the Great Weather,” and “The Light that Fills the World.” I have had a harder time enjoying the percussion pieces. After reading the articles put up for Monday’s class, I began to understand why I enjoy his work so much. Adams’s appreciation of nature as an entity and as musical inspiration instill his music with such a vibrance that his pieces almost feel alive. The drums pounding four minutes in to “The Far Country of Sleep” communicate such raw power while leaving so much open to individual interpretation. The band Sigur Ros released an album with nonsensical lyrics and blank liner notes so that listeners could fill in whatever words they were inspired with in hearing the music. A lot of what I’m hearing from Adams seems to offer a similar idea. Regardless of how the music is received, it seems so emotionally charged that it would be impossible to listen and not feel something significant. Listening to his music makes me want to visit the areas that he inhabited just to witness the grandness that inspired a large amount of his beautiful work.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 6:34 pm and is filed under david, john luther adams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.