The quality of lacking any predictable order or plan.
Does true randomness exist? I am skeptical. How can randomness exist in structured communication? An unexpected interjection of thought or material into a conversation or a place is still constrained by what is possible. I imagine randomness as transcending the possible.
The "avant-garde" is no front runner for anything new, but a reasonably unusual interpretation of materials at its disposal.
I read an impressive essay on this matter once by a composer who will remain nameless in this context, since there is no reason to perk up the searchies with their name when referenced so informally (i.e., I don’t have the essay at hand so I can only paraphrase having read it years ago).
That composer expressed his skepticism of "cutting edge" and "new music" scenes in New York, saying (as I believe) that there has never truly been a new music scene. All music builds on its past, and composer’s (or their agent’s) claims to have made breaks with that past could be characterized as disdainful or simply naïve — the latter quality being more palatable.
Is the obsession with "New" an American pre-occupation, or does it feed all the arts in all the world? If so, why bother filling pages with music or thought any more? What can be said that has not already been said countless times over?
Contemplations of this state of affairs take me back to the foundations of human vanity as expressed in Ecclesiastes, a book which I first read in grade school. Ecclesiastes rattles through my mind as a near-cacophony of dismay and oversight, a backstop to any exaltations or ambitions.
On a more superficial level I find that the essence of vanity extinguishes the possibility of randomness.
