Happy Birthday John Adams

Despite just going on about falling out of love with music, I still have a soundtrack to my life, though I'm starting to think that that's the wrong way round. Most especially, it's the minimalist and post-minimalists, though I never got into the electronica artists who derived so much of their styles from the classical scene. Some of my friends - for some reason women in particular - find the repetition with only tiny variations unbearable to listen to: one or two have even left the room in tearful frustration. For me, significance and drama emerge from the tiniest alterations.

Amongst them is John Adams, who's on the romantic post-minimalist edge these days. As well as repetitive instrumental music, he's single-handedly revived the opera as an art form, despite the vicious attacks directed at him for the Klinghoffer controversy (finally to be revived in London this month, not that I've any chance to see it). Here are some clips:

Musical Oasis

I've been listening to this pretty obsessively recently. No particular reason. You'll need to play it loud.

Students: cast off your Google

My colleagues and I are quite tired, having marked literally thousands of scripts between us. Some are brilliant, many are fine, some are awful and a fair percentage are plagiarised.

What really tires us is reading the exact same thing over and over and over again. Often it's our own lectures, or the same single book, but most of the time, it's paraphrases or cut-and-pastes from the same limited set of useless websites.

Try this: ask yourself what the theme and argument of your essay is. Go to the module reading list and have a look at the books. Look at what the authors have been reading. Think of an example from your own experience and talk about it in the light of what you've read. Tweaking (or not even bothering to tweak) somebody else's thoughts doesn't gain you any grades. Taking risks and trying to say something distinctive (it doesn't have to be innovative at this stage) will definitely get you credit. I've far more respect for risk-takers than for recyclers.

John Adams, the brilliant composer, has a very stylishly-written blog. In this entry, he's plagued by people who think that, because they can operate music composition software, they're composers. His words resonate for me too: don't rush to a computer. Take some time to think things through first, and you'll produce something personal, rather than an institutionalised piece of boiler-plate.

Haven’t you noticed that everything you do is so tediously predictable? I know these programs can be useful—I have one on my hard drive as well, but I try not to be a slave to its built-in stupidities. Why don’t you go back to square one, get some old-fashioned manuscript paper, maybe a pencil—that’s a wooden tubular object with lead at one end and an eraser on the other—and try writing your stuff without being hog-tied by this inflexible piece of software…

Currently listening to…

Leila Josefowicz's recording of John Adams's Violin Concerto. If you're not a classical fan, know this: there's a massive difference between performances. Josefowicz is famously brash, enthusiastic and brilliant, despite once being written off as being yet another hot young violinist being marketed on looks rather than talent.

There's a legendary BBC live recording of this - but copies are now around £50 because it's been deleted. You can hear an American recording here, thanks to NPR, the US's version of Radios 3 and 4.

To Live and Die in LA

John Adams has written a new symphony, City Noir, based on Los Angeles in the 40s and 50s: the glamour but also the seedy, dangerous underbelly. Hear a clip of this edgy, tense, vibrant piece here - the US premiere is soon but the UK one isn't for ages, and a CD won't be available for ages after that. Very annoying: I' and others are still waiting for the release of Reich's Double Sextet (2011!), which is meant to be a massive return to form.

Here's the only bit of it in the public domain:

A jejune attempt at sophistication, Mr. Adams.

Before I disappear to another social occasion, I'll point you to John Adams's website. The great composer is also a witty and assured writer.

He doesn't think much of current classical music criticism. He seems to think it's all pre-ordained, cliché-ridden nonsense.

He's spot on.

Polymathic showoff

I'm a big fan of John Adams's post-minimalist music (if you aren't particularly into this stuff, but have seen The Truman Show, he wrote the soundtrack and is the beardy guy playing keyboards in the control room).

However - he can also write, rather brilliantly, as this short story on his blog shows. There's something quite haunting about it.

Perfect Harmonium

This is an extract from John Adams's Harmonium, one of my favourite pieces of music of all time, one of the pieces that provides solace, excitement or passion whenever I need it.

This second piece is the first of three extracts from Vaughan Williams's Flos Campi, basically a viola concerto. I've a huge soft spot for V-W, but some of his work has been played to death - such as The Lark Ascending - and sounds a bit saccharine. Not this. It's dark, mysterious and strangely beautiful.

This is da bomb!

Good morning (or evening or afternoon for my far-flung readers). How are you all today? Here the sun's breaking through the clouds, a Test match is being played 19 miles away (weather permitting), and I've received a pile of CDs in the post (I have a new card, but no PIN, so can only shop online for now).

What has Postman Pat brought me today? John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony and three CDs of Vaughan Williams: 'Sancta Civitas' and 'Dona nobis pacem' (VW was a cheerful agnostic or atheist and liberal to left - 'Sancta Civitas' is an interesting exploration of the fate of the soul while 'Dona Nobis Pacem' is a warning against war), Folksong Arrangements and Choral Folksong Arrangements (which also has some Holst). Normally my tastes are a little more modernist, but I've a soft spot for VW, and he's on the classical wing of the peace and socialism movement - folk songs were (like the 1960s) a way to demonstrated solidarity and to reconnect with culture unadulterated by bourgeois atomisation - though not always successfully. The Adams is a symphonic version of his latest opera, which follows Robert Oppenheimer as he builds the first nuclear weapon - I can't afford the actual opera recording yet, but it'll come.

Meanwhile, Steve Reich, when's Double Sextet being released? It won prizes ages ago and it still isn't commercially available. Boo!

Down with the kids, for a weekend

I went to see Doves in a forest this weekend. Not the birds, but a popular beat combo named after a type of ecstasy pill distributed in the 1990s. Which is odd really, because beyond the occasional post-euphoric number, they're quite downbeat.

Being an idiot, I assumed a few things - like cold weather and a campsite near the venue. So I took along woolly t-shirts and my newish red DMs (which earned an accusation of National Front membership from Cynical Ben, because mentally he lives in the West Midlands circa 1981). It turned out that the campsite (populated by students and refugees from the early 90s) was a good 5 miles away.

Despite John's ability to break his new tent and lose tentpegs, he proved a genial tentmate for a Manchester United fan. He neither tried to 'tap me up' or 'unsettle' me in any way. We ate fine steaks and then took the hour and a half trek with good humour, despite the hilarious drive-by abuse from people in SUVs. Amazing that possession of a dangerous, poisonous lump of metal gives these morons a sense of superiority.

Obviously we missed the support band, Delphic, which was a shame. But Doves were just right for the occasion - the sun set gently as their melancholic notes wafted over the Cheshire countryside. The beer was no more expensive than a trendy pub of the kind I tend not to frequent, and the mellow aroma of cheap grass filled the air. The weather was balmy - I wore only a t-shirt (on my torso) and didn't feel at all cold. I've put a few pictures here. Meanwhile, a taster including Cynical Ben's bottom - being a ground-dwelling mammal, my view is rather limited at these events.

The journey back was equally lovely, though everybody's feet ached, and we weren't overly pleased to be greeted at 1.30 by the drunken voices of public school students comparing A-levels or whatever they do - I jammed in my headphones and listened to some John Adams until they lapsed into sullen silence, about 2 hours later.

Sunday brought a large breakfast, some quality cheese purchases in Chester, a sweaty journey home, and blissful unconsciousness for twelve hours. All in all, the perfect weekend.

Stream of consciousness

Temporarily away from my music (because it's on an external hard drive I keep in the office, and on vinyl at home) but in range of wi-fi, I've finally seen the point of Last.fm - I'm not convinced by all of its recommendations but there's enough streamed music by people I like and plenty of potential new finds to surprise me. I'm listening to John Adams' Phrygian Gates and planning to see what other fans think I should go for next. Like most music sites though, it's weaker on classical and related music than any other genre.