Chapter 3: Radio as Collective Improvisation

Improvisatory Implications

There are many possible ways to conceive of improvisatory performance and the values that comprise it. It is foundationally important to this chapter to establish improvisation as a phenomenon that far exceeds music. George E. Lewis writes that “improvisation is everywhere, but it can be very hard to see—because this ubiquitous practice of innovation in everyday life, fundamental to the existence and survival of every human formation, is as close to universal as contemporary critical method could responsibly entertain” (2020, vii). This is an understanding of improvisation that suits it well to ideas of complexity. Lewis’s assertion that improvisation is fundamental to survival is particularly apt for discussions of complex adaptive systems and their ability to survive through their adaptations. Borgo notes that “the Latin roots of the word ‘improvisation’ refer to the ‘not-fore-seen’” (2022, 17), a spacious etymological start. He goes on to unpack and refute common tropes in discussions of improvised music:

Definitions of musical improvisation tend to be vague, overgeneralized, or beholden to conventional notions of musical practice. For example, improvisation is often described as composing music on the spur of the moment, or as performing music spontaneously without the aid of manuscript, sketches, or memory. Both of these definitions downplay the extensive practice and experience that seasoned improvisers bring to performance… Further, the degree to which memory or score could prescribe all facets of ‘non-improvised’ musical performance is often overestimated. (ibid., 19-20)

Borgo here rejects the idea of improvisation as constituting a stratum of musical practice separate from (and perhaps lesser than) fully rehearsed compositions. His argument comes from multiple angles: that improvisation is skilled, that improvisation emerges from deep knowledge of generic tenets, and that even the most meticulous notation cannot dictate every choice that shapes an individual musicking event. For any musician experienced in improvisatory practices, these are likely obvious points. They are nonetheless worth foregrounding because of the fundamental misunderstandings that still arise in some public discourse around the idea of improvisation.  

A more productive conception of improvisation understands such practices as elements of a complex system. As a sphere of complex musicking (and sounding) systems, radio necessitates an acceptance of improvisation as a spectrum. Even the sparsest scripts and cue sheets typically give broadcasters a schedule of when to read station identifications, advertising and underwriting information, and other scheduled announcements.[1] The most thoroughly pre-recorded and -produced programs, meanwhile, are still subject to technical difficulties that necessitate immediate staff decisions. From different balances and types of scripted and improvised content emerge countless situations, sounds, and senses of community.

As in jazz, the deeper implications of improvisation or lack thereof in radio are not new, nor are they secret. U.S. American television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, a show that depicts the daily operations of fictitious music-and-news AM radio station WKRP, depicts strategic uses of automation and live programming in 1980 episode “Venus Rising.” The episode’s main plot centers around WKRP late-night DJ Venus Flytrap (played by Tim Reid) evaluating a program director job offer from more financially successful station WREQ. It culminates in the revelation that the station in question almost entirely automates its on-air content. “You see, with you on the air every night, people will still think we’re live,” explains the station manager. When Venus asks what his role would be as program manager, the manager explains that it would require minimal work on Venus’s part: “The music is programmed out of New York, so all you have to do is just tape a couple of things, interviews and so on, so the people will still think it’s all coming out of Cincinnati.” The episode frames the WREQ manager as comically unscrupulous; he expresses an almost maniacal glee in unveiling his system of automation and strongly implies that his interest in Venus is based in the desire to hire a token Black employee purely for corporate optics.

In the end, Venus stays at WKRP for a fraction of what he would receive at WREQ, explaining to his manager at WKRP that “there’s more to a job than just money.” It’s an emotionally and morally satisfying ending within the series universe, but it does not change the reality that spills across the fourth wall separating WKRP and the audience. “Venus, there are already fifteen hundred automatic stations in this country,” says the WREQ manager trying to hire Venus. “You realize that if you buy your news from a national service, you could run an entire station with no people? No people! Think of that one,” he continues, throwing back his head, eyes shut in a moment of blissful fantasy. “It’s an ugly thought, but… think of it.” For decades, many stations have thought of and executed automated practices to various extents and to various ends, many of them arguably pro-profit and anti-worker. As this chapter will explore, automation is not inherently evil, but it is certainly worth careful evaluation as a value-laden technical option chosen within complex radio systems.

In this WKRP in Cincinnati episode, the implications of automation are clear: it will reduce the “drain” of on-air employees on a station’s resources. At the same time, WREQ’s manager acknowledges the cultural capital of presence and by extension improvisation when he offers Venus the station’s only live, on-air programming role. Venus’s audible liveness emerges from improvisatory practices and, per the WREQ manager’s comments, foregrounds personhood-in-place to signify a localness that in some way enhances the station’s reputation. The manager’s pointed mention of the station’s “affirmative action program” in trying to persuade Venus to join the station, meanwhile, is a statement Venus does not take as a sincere commitment to equitable hiring practices but rather as another way the station management intends to capitalize on Venus as a station asset, his spatialized, racialized, and synchronous existence serving as a counter to the alienation people might feel listening to a radio station playing only pre-recorded material manufactured far outside the listening area.

I highlight this episode of a sitcom that predates this dissertation by decades because it offers insight into how old and public the discourse surrounding radiophonic automation and improvisation is. Less clear in this example, though, is what makes the two techniques distinguishable from one another to the listening ear. In my experience and fieldwork at WFHB, I have made my own observations in this regard and heard many more from my colleagues. To discuss them on a practical level, I first explore more theoretically the regimes of values from which such practices emerge and then ponder the notion of emergence itself as it relates to radio practices.

[1] In Nami yo Kiitekure, Minare’s first prescribed episode script takes this to an extreme and in doing so reveals just how inextricable improvisation and preplanning can be in radio performance. “The show starts at 3:32. We’ll cut two minutes into [the slot’s usual programming] and go live without any premise. We won’t do a title call, sponsor introductions, or spot advertising,” explains producer Matō Kanetsugu. “Basically, we want the whole thing to seem like an accident” (Samura 2020a, 15). This is carefully calculated spontaneity, and Matō gives Minare clear if unquantifiable goals for it: “If we can creep people out and make them think, ‘what the hell was that?’ then that’s all we need” (ibid.).