Editing John Adams (composer) (section)

==Musical style==
[[File:Phrygian Gates, mm 21-40.JPG|thumb|upright=1.3|John Adams, ''Phrygian Gates'', {{Abbr|mm|measures}} 21–40 (1977), demonstrates the repetitive approach that is a mainstay of the minimalist tradition]]
Adams's music is usually categorized as [[minimalist]] or [[post-minimalist]], although in an interview he said that his music is part of the "post-style" era at the end of the 20th century.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Fink|first=Robert|title=The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-66256-7|editor-last=Cook|editor-first=Nicholas|editor-link=Nicholas Cook|location=Cambridge|pages=539|oclc=52381088|editor-last2=Pople|editor-first2=Anthony}}</ref> He employs minimalist techniques, such as repeating patterns, but is not a strict follower of the movement. Adams adopted much of the minimalist technique of [[Steve Reich]] and [[Philip Glass]], but his work synthesizes this with the orchestral textures of [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], [[Mahler]], and [[Sibelius]].{{sfn|Ross|2007|pp=584}} Comparing ''Shaker Loops'' to the minimalist composer [[Terry Riley]]'s piece ''[[In C]]'', Adams remarked:

{{blockquote|rather than set up small engines of motivic materials and let them run free in a kind of random play of counterpoint, I used the fabric of continually repeating cells to forge large architectonic shapes, creating a web of activity that, even within the course of a single movement, was more detailed, more varied, and knew both light and dark, serenity and turbulence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.earbox.com/W-harmonium.html |title=John Adams on Harmonium |publisher=Earbox.xom |access-date=September 22, 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117202009/http://www.earbox.com/W-harmonium.html |archive-date=January 17, 2013 }}</ref>|author=|title=|source=}}

Many of Adams's ideas are a reaction to the philosophy of [[serialism]] and its depictions of "the composer as scientist".{{sfn|May|2006|pp=7–10}} The [[Darmstadt School]] of [[Twelve-tone technique|twelve-tone]] composition was dominant while Adams was in college, and he compared class to a "mausoleum where we would sit and count tone-rows in [[Anton Webern|Webern]]".{{sfn|Broyles|2004|pp=169–170}}

Adams experienced a musical epiphany after reading [[John Cage]]'s 1961 book ''Silence'', which he said "dropped into my psyche like a time bomb",{{sfn|Schwarz|2008|p=175}} causing him to drop out of academia, "pack his belongings into a VW Bug, and drive to California".<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Ross |first=Alex |date=September 27, 2010 |title=John Cage's Art of Noise |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/searching-for-silence |access-date=June 6, 2024 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> Cage posed fundamental questions about what music was, and regarded all types of sounds as viable sources of music. This perspective offered Adams a liberating alternative to serialism's rule-based techniques. But Adams found Cage's music equally restricting.<ref name=":7"/> He began to experiment with electronic music, and his experiences are reflected in the writing of ''Phrygian Gates'' (1977–78), in which the constant shifting between modules in [[Lydian mode]] and [[Phrygian mode]] refers to activating [[electronic gate]]s rather than architectural ones. Adams explained that working with synthesizers caused a "diatonic conversion", a reversion to the belief that tonality was a force of nature.{{sfn|Schwartz|Godfrey|1993|p=336}}

Some of Adams's compositions amalgamate different styles. ''Grand Pianola Music'' (1981–82) is a humorous piece that purposely draws its content from musical cliches. In ''The Dharma at Big Sur,'' Adams draws from literary texts such as [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Gary Snyder]], and [[Henry Miller]] to illustrate the California landscape. He has professed his love of genres other than classical music; his parents were jazz musicians, and he has also listened to rock music, albeit only passively. Adams once claimed that originality was not an urgent concern for him the way it was for minimalists, and compared his position to that of [[Gustav Mahler]], [[Johann Sebastian Bach|J. S. Bach]], and [[Johannes Brahms]], who "were standing at the end of an era and were embracing all of the evolutions that occurred over the previous thirty to fifty years".{{sfn|Schwarz|2008|page=182}}

Like other minimalists of his time, Adams used a steady pulse to define and control his music. The pulse was best known from [[Terry Riley]]'s early composition ''[[In C]]'', and more and more composers used it as a common practice. Jonathan Bernard highlighted this adoption by comparing ''Phrygian Gates'', from 1977, and ''Fearful Symmetries'', from 1988.<ref>Jonathan W. Bernard, "Minimalism, Postminimalism, and the Resurgence of Tonality in Recent American Music" ''Journal of American Music'', Spring 2003, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 112–133.</ref>

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Adams started to add a new character to his music, which he called "the Trickster". The Trickster allowed Adams to use the repetitive style and rhythmic drive of minimalism while simultaneously poking fun at it.<ref>{{cite web |last=Stayton |first=Richard |title=The Trickster of Modern Music : Composer John Adams Keeps Reinventing Himself, to Wilder and Wilder Applause |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=June 16, 1991 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-16-tm-1335-story.html |access-date=July 31, 2016}}</ref> When Adams commented on his own characterization of particular minimalist music, he said that he went joyriding on "those Great Prairies of non-event".{{sfn|Heisinger|1989}}