John Luther Adams - Become Ocean

John Luther Adams is an admired American composer whose musical compositions always have a primary focus on nature. According to some online research, he has spent most of his life in Alaska, a place where the wilderness is amazingly unique and scenic. By this token, we can plausibly conjecture that the huge and intact landscapes of Alaska have impacted Adams’ composing process in a profound and inspiring way. As one of the most remarkable pieces composed by Adams, “Become Ocean” has won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music. 

I prepared myself a tranquil and solemn environment before I started listening to this orchestral piece. Unsurprisingly, with the slow and deep sounds gradually evolving, I felt a sense of drowning. My mind seemed to have been intruded. And for a moment, I felt like standing in the bottom of the ocean, in an open and silent area with nobody surrounded. Suddenly with the pitch went higher and the beats went dramatically faster, the sense of suffocation was getting much stronger, as if I was dragged deeper and deeper under the waves. And then, with the powerful sounds pulled away, I went back to a sense of dreariness again. During the process of reiterative rise and fall, my senses have swung repeatedly backwards and forwards from hypoxia to desolation. I tried pretty hard to restrain myself and not to scream; while when I finally wasn’t able to bring my emotion back to control and about to shout out, I just found out that I seemed to have been choked and unable to pour put all my repressive emotions. 

Apparently, this narrative of this piece offered me a novel way of listening to music. The exquisite collaboration of various instruments not only made this symphonic piece harmonious and sensible, but also particularly “visible”. The intense notes of the strings, bass, percussion, etc… were extraordinarily powerful, which stimulated listeners to sense something outside of the reality. From the rumbling of bass to the rippling of the piano, and then arpeggios of the strings, we may perceived our connection to the ocean through the varying and overlapping soundscapes; or just like the title suggested, we may “become ocean” as “life on this earth first emerged from the sea” (The New Yorker).

The relationship between the nature and human is a constant topic. Adams’ “Become Ocean” thus is a preeminent work to guide people to profoundly concentrate on the interrelation between us and our immediate surroundings by conveying the power of ocean in the form of musical notes.