He was born in Bindersleben, near Erfurt, to David Adlung, an organist and his first teacher, and the former Dorothea Elisabetha Meuerin, from Tondorf.
At this time, he became friends with Johann Gottfried Walther in Weimar, and borrowed his works on music theory; he later wrote some books on the subject, most of which were destroyed, along with his house, in a fire in 1736.
He returned to Erfurt in 1737 where he succeeded Johann Heinrich Buttstedt as organist of the Prediger church after the former's death, a post he retained for the rest of his life.
He is one of a group of excellent scholar-musicians of the mid-18th century, along with Johann Mattheson, Lorenz Christoph Mizler, and Johann Gottfried Walther, who all wrote important and comprehensive studies of the theory, aesthetics, and practice of music; their works are rich and still partly untapped sources of information today, particularly about baroque music and performance practice.
[2][3] - Ermuntre dich, mein schwacher Geist - Christus, der ist mein Lebe - Herr Christ, der einig Gottessohn - Trio in a-minor His autobiography is in the 'Vorrede' of part II of Musica mechanica organoedi.