Adorno Blog Post (4/21/16): Is it really possible to have an impromptu art form?

Adorno's texts really got me thinking. An ideal form of music would be one that lacks structure, practically so it can be of outside of any influence, more specifically capitalist/consumer interest. His dislike of Jazz for example is because of it's pseudo importu-ness and infatuation with the exotic (how jazz is targeted as a afro-american musical style).

It is difficult to find any sort of music that fits his "requirements". From birth, it seems we are all indoctrinated into some form of culture. And it is difficult to escape those cultural influences that have become an inherent part of our individuality. Even our own notion of randomness may not be all that random. For example, during my community college years I was on the school debate team. I participated in the extemporaneous and impormptu speaking contests. And although the speeches were supposed to be "impromptu", they weren't actually. Many of the times our speeches followed a specific formula or structure that we had practiced prior to the competition. This style of pre-prepared "impromptu-ness" isn't what Adorno has in mind.

Taking a look at other art forms such as impromptu comedy, freestyle rap or battle rapping, we can see that there is this pre-prepared impromptu-ness to the performance. Many of the times the participants of these events give a fresh performance, however the material they use had to have already have been preconceived. Having a mental safe of material one can use is essential as an impromptu performer. So in the example of my community college debate team. The coach told us that the best way to be a impromptu competitor was to have a "shit you know list", a mental consciousness of the things we already know throughly, so when asked to improvise we can always refer back to that memory of topics we are comfortable with.

My point with all of this is that I do not see any way one can truly be random. We are all influenced by outside factors with or without our knowledge. So art forms that claim to be random may actually not be.