Some additional thoughts/corrections: 1) I didn't want to get too deep into the history in the intro, but if you want to know more about how Kind Of Blue came to be, Ashley Kahn's book of the same name is a good starting point. 2) To be clear, when I say that I get where the "discrepancies" folks are coming from, my point isn't that Russell is in any meaningful way wrong. It's that, by framing his model as universal and definitive, he invites that form of scrutiny, even though it's largely irrelevant to what he's actually doing. I understand the instinct to want to argue with him to find the "right" answer, even if I recognize it as a distraction from more salient and interesting lines of inquiry. 3) I played a little fast and loose with interval inversions here in order to keep things in a comfortable register, so if you noticed that sometimes I talked about going up a 5th but actually went down a 4th, that's why. 4) If you're wondering why the writing and drawings got so small while I was talking about the Lydian-derived scales, it's because I _really_ wanted to get all 7 principal scales on one page. It just wasn't possible, but I was trying my best. 5) Another reason Lydian Dominant may have been initially excluded is that it's actually the 2nd mode of Lydian Augmented. (That is, it's the same notes, just using a different one as the root.) As such, it may not have seemed necessary to him to include as its own separate scale. If so, he may have chosen to add it in later for roughly the same reason he provides space for the major scale: It's a compositionally important tool in the Western harmonic tradition, and he wants to make clear how his model interacts with it. 6) Russell does actually define some specific uses for some of the roots we skipped over, like the 5th and the 3rd. They can still be parent scales, he just positions them as parent scales of inversions. So, like, if you see Gma7 with a D in the bass, you can think of that as a G lydian scale built on D. Didn't feel worth getting into in the video, but wanted to mention it somewhere. 7) A thing I'm honestly not entirely clear on is why Russell ties the augmented dominant to the #5/b6 of Lydian Augmented instead of the 3, which can also make the same chord but is lower down the ladder. My best explanation is that it allows the root of the parent Lydian to be a chord tone, which is pretty useful, but as far as I can find he never actually says that. Still, if pressed, that's how I'd justify that decision. 8) Oh also I forgot to include the minor (major 7) chord. Treat those like normal minor chords, with their lydian root on their chordal 3rd, but use Lydian Augmented instead of normal Lydian. 9) One thing I maybe should've been clearer about is that the parent scale changes (or, at least, can change) with the chord. This is fairly evident in So What, where Davis spends 16 bars in F lydian over the Dmi7 chord, then switches to Gb lydian over the Ebmi7 chord. (With some D naturals thrown in near the end, which can be read as either a nod to Gb lydian augmented or setting up the return to F lydian when the chord changes back.) It's a way of establishing a local tonal gravity instead of a global one, although he also describes some more advanced ways of using these ideas that do allow for longer-form tonalities. 10) A thing that was impossible to capture with a short enough clip to call fair use is that, because there's no chord changes, Davis is free in his solo to play around with hypermeter in ways that might otherwise sound awkward. For example, while the clip I used was a 4-bar phrase, it actually starts in bar 4 of the solo, and his phrases vary in length throughout.
So yeah ..It seems clear by some initially whom I learned from .. is the Lydian chromatic idea is based on a stack of perfect 5ths from any root that not really ‘arbitrarily’ discards the b9 in LydChrom that is the most outside note and when that is accomplished, the next p5 over b9 is our #5(b6) which is so handy when creating the Lydian augmented scale 1) 123#4#567.. which is also mode 3 on ascending melodic minor scale.. the most heard mode in jazz?? 2) proceeding from 5th over that b6 gives us b3...b7..4.. and finally b9..... I discovered utility in the II. V cliche Dm7 DmiMa7 Dmi7 Dmi6..( All F Lydian G7)../ D.. etc
The idea that chords and scales were conceptually "the same thing" for the purpose of improv and composition is like...the foundation of all jazz education, and has been since George Russell pioneered the idea. That really can't be overstated - George Russell's theory is the foundation of how jazz is taught. The problem is that George Russell bent over backwards to invent new vocabulary that didn't have much to do with practice, and other educators like Jamie Aebersold, David Baker and Jerry Coker (the "ABC's" of jazz education....lol) codified chord scales in a much easier-to-follow way that beginning improvisers could actually apply without trying to parse the absolutely buckwild book that is the Lydian Chromatic Concept. So, with the exception of some schools like NEC and IU, nobody uses it anymore. Still fascinating, though. Berklee uses another system based off of Joseph Schillinger's work, and most schools end up using similar approach.
Why didn't any of the jazz schools ask the actual jazz musicians like Barry Harris how they thought about music? None of the bebop players thought like they teach in universities.
Very interesting. To me it sounds as if there is a whole world of jazz theory nobody ever talks about... Can you recommend specific books to learn these things?
This discovery of a duality reminds me of when Michael Faraday discovered a magnet and electricity were two sides of the same coin, hence electromagnetism.
So, I took George’s Lydian class back in 1979 at New England Conservatory , as well as playing in his big band ensemble performing his compositions. The Lydian concept was a really an interesting method for composing. Trouble was, George insisted that the method was fact and the only true theory to explain music. Plus he was a really bitter angry man, adding to his caustic teaching approach and insistence that the Concept was the only “right” way to consider music. I composed in a very different manner using his system, and his concept of inward and outward measuring of dissonance was really interesting and useful. But he was such a total angry teacher, treating students in unforgivable ways, that I can never think positively about him. Clearly we owe him much for the influence he had on great artists such as Miles.
I have two editions of the “Lydian Concept”, copyrights 1959 and 2001. The earlier edition includes some wonderful little charts and a “Swiss cheese” looking card that can be placed over a grid of notes, revealing chords and their analysis via the “parent scales” from which they are derived. These charts and the “decoder” have been, for me, the most useful part of the entire book. The newer volume has no such charts.
The Lydian method definitely has many gems, but to me it often feels like George Russel is explaining things in the most complex way possible. It sort of reminds me how for years Astronomers tried to explain the motion of the planets using complex series of circles rotating inside of circles because they _really_ wanted the planets to move in circles, before Kepler finally showed that it all could be simply modeled using ellipses. (That is, the Method feels like the circles-within-circles approach).
you didn't get the details right, the circles within circles (called epicycles) were meant to explain the retrograde movement of planets caused by them all orbiting the sun and not the earth; the geocentric model is what they insisted on. copernicus reintroduced heliocentrism, and later kepler did indeee come up with elliptical orbits. but i agree, good analogy.
I don't think you can fault them for assuming circles, it was the simplest hypothesis given the observational data they had at the time. Kepler made more accurate observations and discovered the orbits were ellipses, but didn't know why. Newton figured out the why.
I studied, toured and recorded with George Russell. He was an amazing influence and personality. True, some of his statements and behavior would be inappropriate today, and although i still think they are inexcusable, one must be careful looking at history through today's lens and focus. I think the big mistake that people make is taking the concept literally. I think the best way to look at it, is the way someone (i dont remember who...) wrote a master's thesis on "the concept", ripped it to shreds, pointed out many holes and inconsistencies, but in the summary of their thesis pointed out that "the concept" is a method for organizing ART!!! (in this case music) and not math or science. For example, George's "ingoing outgoing" concept and "vertical, horizontal and supra-vertical" methods have helped me organize my own music ideas and in the end that's what counts. In other words I was able to create art with the help of "the concept". If you want to dismiss this, then you need to dismiss Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings because he was inspired by theater and according to his own admission, he didnt care how good the theater piece was, he enjoyed the spectacle first. You'll need to dismiss Schoeberg's "pierrot lunaire" because it's inspired by poetry that never even approaches the high standards of Shakespeare etc, how do you even evaluate Cage's music based on the I-Ching.... the list goes on and on with composers and artists (xenakis - stochastic principles for example) using various methods, inspirations etc that can be logically embraced or dismissed but somehow they still created art. so i would recommend that you roll the dice with "the concept" and if it doesnt work for you find something else. this is a situation where "it's all good" and in the end it's up to you to do you thing. Enjoy!! :-)
I agree with all you said and glad you had positive experiences with George. If he liked a student, everything would be wonderful. Again, I found his concepts unique and aesthetically useful . But on many occasions he showed despicable behavior in dressing down students, measured on any level, completely unforgivable. Added to that was his absoluteness in his theory, having complete disdain for any other system and insisting to young students that his concept was truth. Music theory is never true, it is a concept to help explain an art form. There is no right or wrong, it is all interpretations. A professor owes it to the student to mentor and support, not degrade or denigrate. As a student I couldn’t say anything at the time, but recognized how bad the situation was. As a professor today, I would hope to never treat a person like he did, let alone one of my students, and would never assert my musical philosophy as the only way. I’m not the genius George Russell was, but I hope I give my students, all of them, more than what I experienced back then.
@@MrDavidBHarris sorry u had a bad experience, i saw him dress some students down, he could be hard on players, but i never saw him doing anything of the "whiplash" kind, in other words engage sexist, racist and homophobic bullying. we were def afraid of him, but he did reward hard work. i'm not being nostalgic or letting him off the hook, just trying to be fair and factual. i commend you for being a better teacher and wish you only the best
@@MrDavidBHarris I only read what Ben Schwendener had to say about the man and it's almost as if you were talking about a completely different person. Don't get me wrong i am not implying that you are lying in any way. It's just that based on what i read in Ben's book i was under the impression that if anything George Russel was a gentle, open minded and wise person. Not at all the type of professor that would degrade or denigrate. That being said while going through your comments I remembered hearing Reed Gratz say that he could be a devil ...
@@MIsweetshadow George was Ben's mentor and I'm sure they had an amazing relationship . Again, if George approved of you, he was apparently a wonderful person. I saw him destroy young players during rehearsals, swearing and hurling racial epitaphs, degrading them in front of a whole big band. At the same period, I studied and played under Jaki Byard, another musical genius( amazing pianist who played with Mingus). HE was the sweetest, most joyous person, and completely the opposite of George in class and in rehearsals. Being a genius does not grant you the right to be an awful human, and bitter angry people should remove themselves from institutions of learning.
The section from 14:49 for the next 30 seconds helped me understand what you meant by "Lydian isn't the color, it's the palette", thanks for that. That's a good modal mindset in general, though I never thought about it in painting terms before.
Tonality has: Brightness / Darkness Emotional Coloure / Temperance Hue That's also the allure of music - it's ability to preform an organized mix of emotions (something that is [closer than] next to impossible to achieve even with meditative practice)
Wow! That was brilliant. Does your brain ever allow to sleep at night? You're an amazing artist. I was introduced to the Lydian Chromatic Concept 40 years ago by my friend Fletcher. He. said "That's why Coltrane sounds like Coltrane". I copied his copy of the book, which I happened across earlier today as I was sorting though my music library, so when I saw this vid title I had to catch my breath. Well done.
7:58 What I find really interesting here is that if you *don't* move the minor ninth, you can start replacing notes starting with the end of that list and get the list of modes in that "brightest to darkest" order. Lydian, with the natural 4 is Ionian, minor 7 is Mixolydian, minor 3 is Dorian, minor 6th is Aeolian, minor 9/2 is Phrygian, then the diminished 5 is Locrian. Fascinating stuff, idk what it means.
That's because the major scale and its modes are constructed by stacking fifths above and below a root. Lydian, the brightest mode, is found by stacking 6 fifths upon the root, major by going 1 fifth down and 5 up, etc. In tuning theory these kinds of scales are known as "moment of symmetry" scales, where you stack a generating interval (a fifth in this case) and reduce the intervals to a single period (an octave in this case) until you get a scale where there are only 2 step sizes.
There is only one person in Boston teaching LCC, his name is Ben Schwendener and he was George Russell's closest student for decades. Maybe you could interview him?
Andy Wasserman is also teaching the Concept with a particular focus on preserving George's perspective. A favored student of George's and very close friend right up until his passing. Andy taught his classes while George was travelling with his band, and even wrote the Forward in the latest edition. He would be the one to talk to for the most accurate representation of the Concept. I believe Ben teaches "Organic Music Theory" which is his own translation and expansion of the Concept, and is not aiming to be a faithful portrayal of the George's work.
@@hippojuice23 Ha! Yeah, just noticed that one recently. Responding a year later, but psych music in general arrives at similar conclusions from a different route.
I was in the class with Ben, he was a bit of a d-k as well. Horrible class. So dull. Absolutely difficult to u derstand as he was not a very good teacher (GR, I can’t speak to Ben) and as another commenter said, it was his way or the highway.
I had no clue; this absolutely describes what I’ve been experimenting with over the last year or so. Thank you for putting it all into words. I noticed some of these intervallic relationships described in the concept, but I hadn’t dug any deeper than writing a few notes down and consistently practicing what I had recognized. Good to hear that I’m not on some random tangent lol
the 1985 reprint of the 1964 edition is the one I have. Russell is able to bring a discussion of Ornette into the mix, and emphasise that the concept was not a simplistic modal jazz methodology. Its primary purpose was to enable the player or composer to utilise all the resources of the chromatic scale in any environment. In practice that meant polytonal chords, interval sequences, scales, melodic modulation, using the Coltrane tritonic system, Bartok's axis theory and just about any other compositional method you can name, but given a fresh focus of being relatable to any given Lydian chromatic tonic. Russell was offering the ability to create compositions that work on multiple levels simultaneously, where different rhythms, types of harmonic activity and movement could co-exist with one another.
Thanks for making a vid about this. I tried reading the book a couple years ago when I couldn't find any good videos explaining the concept. It was a very difficult read & I eventually kind of gave up on learning it. This vid really tied the concept together well & it finally clicked for me to an extent. Would love to see more vids tying back to this concept - maybe breaking down songs in a way that ties back to this mode of analysis. Thanks for this vid though. Gave me a lot to think about. I appreciate your hard work. 🙏
You drew a voltage divider for the word "divides." You also remarked that the universe isn't cyclical. My kind of guy. I myself have wanted to describe music with abstract algebra, in an alternative fashion to (or reformulation of) the tonnetz.
There's a dude called Stefano Morchio who is doing work on creating some interesting mathematical spaces in which to represent 12TET music. There's a great video where he plays through an Allan Holdsworth composition (Sphere of Innocence) and his program maps the pitch class set parsimony on a network graph
Thanks! George Russell, Barry Harris, and Bergonzi I had to study on my own even though I went to 6 years of some highly regarded jazz schools. Just about everything is there in the work of those three. More people need to know about this stuff!
7 mins and 31 sec in so far and i had to stop again to say , what a greatjob im so impressed . i been thinking about this for years and never seen anyone talk justice about this as a topic and how thought out the effort here you have taken and the way you describe it is masterfully done video so far. ( so much so that you have really transformed my perspective towards you in general, i can see you been developing yourself more and more overtime you are doing so great .
Great exploration, thanks! I devoured The Lydian Chromatic Concept while at university. Even though I was neck deep in classical studies at the time, it rocked my world, and even though I don't often consciously think about these ideas, they constantly inform what I do in both jazz- and rock-based playing. Russell was clearly brilliant. Cheers!
@GOLV4 Great question. During my studies I had the marvellous opportunity to study composition privately. Something my first composition teacher insisted we work through was Paul Hindemith's The Craft of Musical Composition, Books 1 (Theory) and 2 (Exercises in Two-Part Writing). Those books seemed a bit daunting at first, but I'm not exaggerating to say that I still think of them often. And I say that as someone who's definitely not a 'theory for the sake of theory' guy. That subsequently led me to dip into Hindemith's other books, such as Traditional Harmony. But I'd say if you even just begin to do the work laid out in the Composition books, it's a well deep enough to drink from for a lifetime. The other thing that I'd say was very important to my education and subsequent musical life was having literally copied out, by hand, works of some of my favourite composers. When I was doing that most heavily (in my teens and early twenties) it was largely Bach and Penderecki, funnily enough. But I got the idea from Bach, as he learned the craft of composition by copying out scores from his favourites such as Buxtehude. I figured, if it was good enough for JSB, it was good enough for me. ;-) I realise this would seem to have little to do with jazz per se, but let's face it, the differences in musical genre are like those of 'dialects' rather than 'language'. An egg is an egg, whether it's used to create a soufflé or poached. The result is a question of style. 🙂I hope that's of some help.
@@a2ndopynyn I do not want to post a link of another person's channel in the comment section of a channel driving traffic away from a person's channel. RUclips Courtesy. If you are interested, look up, "8 Bit Music Theory," and it will be the first channel to pop up. Their latest video is on the mode.
@@CAPAE See, the way to do it is to post that one here, but also post this one over there. That way, viewers of each channel can check out the other one...
That was really fascinating. I'd heard of LCC before, but it always seemed theoretical and impenetrable. With your adept explanation, it now seems practical and accessible. Thanks
Great video! Despite the multiple errors in Harmonic Series interpretation and proprietary naming conventions that did not stick to mainstream academia for obvious reasons, Russell's LCC theory has really powerful intent, which, to this day, has the strongest potential to be developed into a thoroughly multicultural music education paradigm. Clearly, there is some confusion between the Harmonic Series and the Circle of Fifth (the Lydian scale by the first 7 fifths) going on in Russell's book. The sequential note hierarchy and tuning approximations (compared to the chromatic 12TET ) are quite different for the Harmonic Series and the Circle of Fifth (assuming we are dealing with the perfect natural fifths). Accurate examination and comparison of those prime matters may bring exciting insights and a broader vision of possible musical outcomes.
It's not my intent to hijack the comments, so I apologize in advance. But, I found my notes on Rhythmic Gravity. Here are the main points from my notes taken in 1989-90(!). There are few instances where my notes kinda don't add up . I couldn't begin to reinterpret or to decipher my mistakes in transcription from 33 years ago. :). Rhythm is any phenomenon that has recognizably separate particles separated by regular or irregular intervals of time and space has rhythm (sic). Tempo (pulse) - the rate of flow of constituent pars of the whole. Further sub-division of tempo according to strong & weak (metric cells or sub-divisions of the basic pulse) Rhythmic modes produce Rhythmic States. Overall combinations produces the level of Rhythmic Gravity. Rhythmic States I Pro-Tempo dominant textural movement projects Pro-Metric and/or Pan Metric phrases. Reinforces constant single fixed tempo II Pan Temp -- succession of Pro & Pan Metric phrases reflecting two or more metronome tempos II A Tempo - one or more singular of complex rhythmic velocity scales (Rubato) Modes of Rhythmic Gravity Pro-Metric - constant meter over a constant pulse, rhythmic phrases that project & comply with a constant meter Pan-Metric - constant pulse & variable meter (varying sequence of meters) or any identical constant meter Pro-Velocity - pulse not constant. based on a pulse that "moves" (tempo zones) underlying pulse as movable (rubato) -- metronome is divided into 3 "zones" Pan Velocity - pulse not constant.. velocity based on _several_ "tempo zones" 'A' Velocity accelerates and decelerates . each not must increase or decrease the pulse of the previous note Levels of Rhythmic Gravity 1) Homogenous - most ingoing. projects both pro- and/or pan-metric phrase over constant pulse. 2) Pan Sequential -- succession of metronomic pulses (ex. grave-allegro-piu mosso within one movement) 3) Super-Imposed -- two contrasting moods super-imposed (ex. 6/8 over 4/4) 4) Pan Sequential (sic) -- a succession of contrasting moods (Pro/pan/A tempo rhythmic phrases.
I went to more than one George Russell concert. One of them he used a full orchestra and was conducting. He went chronologically through its development explaining the concept as he went along. Since I had his book it was easy to listen to. When he got to the year 1959, he said "if I turn around and no one is here I will understand". What he was doing by 1959 was a little more Avant guard than what Miles was doing. Actually it was a little more Avant guard than Ornette. This concert was around 1975.
This is the best introduction to the LCCTO for a general audience I've seen yet. Bravo! I've been studying it for the past three years, out of my own curiosity. Centering the Lydian scale is intuitive to me. LCCTO is the "users manual" to the Circle of Fifths, the treatise that explains why the Circle of Fifths is such a powerful musical tool. To be absolutely clear, this is my own statement, not what the LCCTO advocates. While whole swaths of the concept are useful and practical (Ben Schwendener's Organic Music Theory book is fantastic for teaching the applications of the LCCTO), the LCCTO's major challenge for wide-spread acceptance is the tendency for people to want it to be a "silver bullet" theory, one coherent music theory to explain EVERYTHING. It's not that. But neither does any of the other competing concepts for organizing theoretical concepts in music, including Schillinger's System of Musical Composition. No "unified theory of music" exists but Schillinger's and Russell 's come closest to such thing. I wish more folks gave LCCTO a fair chance rather than rejecting it because parts of it are inconsistent. Applause for your effort here, and willingness to keep an open mind to what is useful from the LCCTO while objectively addressing some of its inconsistencies.
Any scaled can be referenced from any of its letters, but this is just enharmonics. f lydian is another way of saying d dorian. i've spent many many hours trying to understand why these enharmonics exist and how they don't confuse the crap out of musicians given that any piece of music can be retold using its enharmonics. what i've come to understand is that more important than the naming schemes are the notes themselves. so i decided to make learning chord progressions easy on myself by referencing each chord scale to the same letter, Cb, C, C#. this constitutes one position on my guitar, and i can play chord changes by going through the different modes of Cb, C and C#. then i can expand that into the D's, G's, E's, F's, A's and B's to cover the full range of my instrument. what i've come to realize is that chord changes are actually mode changes of the same root letter, thus a real chord change involves chord-scales that have one or more note difference. when it comes to progressions, there's ways of simplifying and complexifying it. you could even use the same scale over a set of changes that you recognize to be apart of that scale. with regards to the 9b, i think it's interesting because i've always thought to myself that if i don't fully understand why a musician played a certain chord or note, i just say "because it sounds good". of course it probably came from a theory, but if you didnt know the theory you would still know that it sounds good. there are infinite possibilities with music. theory just attempts to explain and reproduce a given sound, like a language. victor wooten says you're only a half-step away from a right note, so you could play the chromatic scale over every chord change in every key and let the chord changes do all the work. you could even play a totally random scale and just make sure to move over a half-step if you hit a bad sounding note.
I studied with Russell for two years at NEC back in the '80s. If I remember correctly, at the time, he stated that the Lydian Dominant scale was established as a separate scale because of its use in Miles Davis's "In A Silent Way". His LCC Theory was being developed to encompass rhythm although I recall it being much more complicated and fraught. I found his distinctions between Vertical, Horizontal, Supra Vertical, and Supra Horizontal (? pace, my failing memory of things from 33 years ago). The analogy was to a trip up the Mississippi River. Vertical is like visiting all of the towns along the way (Coleman Hawkins), Horizontal is visiting only the major cities (Lester Young), Supra Vertical was getting in a rocket ship and zooming into space and back to all of the cities along the way (John Coltrane), and Supra Horizontal was to get into a rocket ship and zoom over it all from New Orleans to Chicago (Ornate Coleman). Additionally, I thought his delineation between Ingoing Vertical Melodies (Absolute or Chromatically Enhanced), Outgoing Vertical Melodies (Chromatic Scale Interval Melody), Ingoing Horizontal Melodies (Absolute or Chromatically Enhanced), Outgoing Horizontal Melodies (Chromatic Scale Interval Melody) were also fascinating/liberating ways of approaching improvisation. Ultimately, I always felt like you had to be in his class to fully understand what he was talking about (also, his tangents were often the best part of the class). The verbiage of the book was necessarily dense to try to avoid misinterpretation but it was often a tough read.
I studied with Russell for 2 semesters in the mid 90s. I agree that you had to be there in class to really absorb the concept. Our writing assignments were fun and challenging at the same time. Performing each other's pieces was great. He didn't seem any more bitter than anyone else that looked back on their career.
I would be very interested to learn more about what you mean by his theory was being developped to encompass rythm. I heard Ben Schwendener mentioning something like rythmical gravity in an interview but unfortunately he didn't elaborate. Is that what you meant by his theory being developped to encompass rythm ?
@@MIsweetshadow Yes! That's it. It was more like Rhythmic Gravity. (I have my notes in a box somewhere but I couldn't stomach the notion of digging for them.) It was harder to understand than the "regular" LCC
@@laredo4242 I also didn't find him to be bitter. He was sometimes prickly or a bit impatient. But, he'd also tell stories and just casually drop names like Miles, Trade, Bill Evans. So, it was a good trade off IMO
@@jameseason1759 Interesting. I always thought that there had be something more that just the scales he talks about in the lydian chromatic concept volume 1. You can sort of guess that there is something missing because it never totally makes sense. Unfortunately no one talks about that. If it wasn't for Ben Schwendener mentioning it I would never have heard of it. I guess he (Russell) addressed that topic in one the unpublished volumes. I desperately hope that these will be made available at some point. I spent 5 years studying that book but so far it never paid off which is frustrating in many ways because you can feel that there is potential in there. You have got me all the more intrigued now that you said it was harder to understand than the regular LCC. By any chance, if not in one of your box, do you know if these informations can be found somewhere on the internet ?
Loved this! Re: "If that were true, then why do so many composers write in major" - I think it's because, in major, the tonal gravity can pull you one step beyond the tonic. Being able to overshoot home a bit is as musically useful as the tonal gravity itself.
In this one little RUclips comment, I genuinely believe you have adequately explained the tonal gradient between writing compelling dramatic "Western" progressions and jamming over mostly static pedals and vamps. I think one of the most eye opening experiences for me when it comes to understanding harmony was reading a paper about how Zappa self-taught/may have accidentally heard about Lydian theory in his own education. His use of "Lydian-based tonal thinking" and subsequent deriving his melodic and harmonic ideas from this concept, for me, made sense of why pop song cord progressions are the way they are and why I enjoyed some live Pink Floyd bootleg recordings. Everything started to make sense: modally approaching jams over vamps, the i-VI-III-VII progression, modulations, how to use a diminished 7th chord, why Eb major feels darker than C major yet D major feels brighter than C major. George Russell went a little too crazy obsessive developing a system when all he really had to do was say "think of Lydian as essentially almost too stable to write compelling progressions with, but still use it and its parallel scales when thinking about how to build harmony: whether that is a canvas for improvisation or foundation for building compelling progressions"
I've always had a hell of a time conceptualizing the circle of fifths and other traditional Western classical ways of conceptualizing scales and chords. This video confused me a little near the end, but I still found it easier to understand that most of the music theory that I formally learned in choir and high school/college band.
Imagine going to the channel where the host doodles while talking about music and whining about the host doodling while talking about music. Another great video!
Very interesting. I had a similar idea of why in jazz dorian is preferred over aeolian: because the b6 is almost telling that we are in the fourth chord, whereas the dorian sixth is more neutral. Anyways this theory also explains why some modes have less stable tonic, which also many people noticed when trying to compose in different modes.
In LCC that's because the Minor chord(VI mode of Lydian scale) is the vertical representation of the lydian scale. The eolian scale or all the scales with no #4th and a natural 4th is a horizontal scale. Horizontal scales want to resolve to the chord wich is lydian. That's why eolian wants to resolve to a minor but when you play Dorian sounds like you can go to anywhere ou just be in Dorian all day. Horizontal scale is goal oriented. Vertical scale is the lydian itself and tonal gravity can leave you to any place you want to resolve. And to make this resolution even more stronger(If you want so) you can use a Horizontal scale to resolve on the major/relative minor chord. You can se aeolian as minor with a dissonance (b6). C lydian with dissonance (natural 4th 12 T.O) Fun fact: The b6(F in Am) is the lydian tonic(F lydian). A minor scale(horizontal) resolving on the minor chord. F lydian(passive force wich contains A minor eolian (horizontal scale active force) resolves to C lydian(Am chord), Russel call that duality, the lydian scale can be vertical and horizontal. That depends of the musical context. Of course. There are a lot of awesome things about LCC to explore. Vertical Tonal Gravity, Horizontal Tonal Gravity and Supravertical Tonal gravity. I'm still learning. A lot of possibilities. Very cool. The book is hard to understand (at first looks like chord scale theory but it's not). I really recomend you (if you want to)to look for private lessons with someone who learned LCC.
It's really important to keep in mind George Russell's background in jazz to understand this theory. In jazz, the tonic major chord is virtually always a Maj7#4. That is the most consonant home cord. And it is of course rooted in the harmonic series. The harmonic series has a #4, not a natural 4. The natural 4 is almost never used in major chords. Only m7 (m11) chords and suspended chords typically use the natural 4 in jazz (often diminished voicings as well). The #4 and in general the Lydian scale is the most consonant scale built on the tonic in jazz. It just sounds more stable in extended harmony. And that's because it's based on the harmonic series.
@@doublespoonco no, it depends. If there is a Maj7 between the 5 and #4 (#11 in this case), it doesn't sound very dissonant, like the M7 between the root and 7th. And sometimes the #4 can be even put against the 5 and it doesn't sound very dissonant if the chord is voiced with the m2nd in the middle. They call these "crunchy" voicings Another example would be putting the 2 right next to the m3 in a m9th chord. If it's voiced with the m2nd cluster in the middle, it can sound great, even beautiful
The 4th on C major sounds more dissonant because obscures the quality of the chord. That's why Russel classifies as 11 Tonal order. #4 with 5 can clash but you still can hear the major chord so it's not a dissonance.
I'm not a music theorist or very experienced in formal music theory - I'm a guitarist, but that's about it. But, it seems to me like there are many areas in this theory which seem sort of crudely stapled together: the minor 9th thing, the "horizontal" scales being defined by a perfect fourth, etc. If you have to make all sorts of accommodations and exceptions, what you have is not a consistent theory guided by a set of principles. This might be the chemistry student in me, but the data doesn't fit your hypothesis, you need to change your hypothesis. It might be a good approximation, but this sort of behavior is a sign that there is a better, more fundamental approximation.
The “fundamental thing” is the overtone series and using 12TET to approximate it. Everything else is culture and taste ;) My own ears are constantly evolving, and things that used to sound like garbage to me I can now identify and they sound much more pleasant now that I have some context. So that argues against a fundamental universally applicable explanation of harmony. Also: having recently gotten into trying to play Bach on the piano and now starting to hear counterpoint in my head better, I think discussion of harmony in the absence of melody/rhythm is not particularly meaningful.
I feel the same way, but it's also good to note the usefulness of taking a theory that doesn't quite work and seeing what you can discover and do with it. in this case, through exploring this theory some of the foundations of modern jazz were found, even if the core assertions seem bunk at this stage. Also, never forget: the other potential outcome for a discrepancy in your theory is that there's something you don't know yet. Leave no stone unturned, and like with this video, it's good to not forget the ones that didn't turn out quite right.
my knowledge of music theory is pretty limited but if I understand this correctly, this model actually seems to be pretty good at describing some postpunk and postmetal band's approaches. If you look at e.g. Amenra (Razoreater, Pain and their other songs) they regularly use one chord as an anchor and provide variety by keeping the stable root/palette and leading a song through melody, not harmony.
🤔... Harmony is an accompaniment (chaperone), where the Melody is the simplified piece (smaller sibling) So, review the "Parent Notes" to review the Scales (available ladder), and you might visualize more of the Concept (Remember, I didn't say you were wrong)
That would also describe why so many jazz musicians use Dorian instead of Aeolian in minor horizontal improvisation (not based on chords). Because the 6th mode of the Lydian scale is the Dorian mode, as the #4 from the Lydian parent scale becomes the #6 in the derived minor (Dorian) scale and the VI degree in the Dorian mode. Of course all of that said, while I’m still using Ionian major based terminology for the sake of clarity
Fascinating video, and a great complement to my usual explanations on the origins of modal jazz and modal music. Haven't run into something that challenges my conception of modal ideas this much in a while, so I'm excited to start ruminating on this. Thanks for the research and the work!
Hi, idk if you read comments but this video reminded me a lot of Edmond Costere and his theory, which I find to be much more refined... and yet I've never seen anyone on RUclips discussing his work. Besides occasional studies and papers in English, French, German and Portuguese I've never seen anyone talking about it.
I enjoy the concept of tonal gravity, and this was a great video that helped to de-mystify the lydian chromatic concept that for me as a jazz student in a public university in the 2000s, it was a sort of forbidden knowledge that only the heppest of cats knew about (and the book was too expensive to buy for somebody eating ramen)
15 mins 17 sec in and fantastic! you grasp something about LCC i have never seen another person express understanding ! you are doing such a fantastic job on this video!
10 mins in now, you have done it at least in my mind sir. ( that is, you have reached an elite level of music theory understanding that is one step closer to seeing the unified therory of harmony) but more impressive is you have put the work in and effort to get to a point few have even tried this si significant and i apprecitae you and hold you in high regard.
Not defending his obviously logically flawed concepts but the “plagal cadence” is rarely used by composers. Try and find examples of phrases ending with this cadence in classical period for example. If it does happen it’s exceptionally rare. It basically doesn’t “exist” as a cadence. Even Bach chorales which have cadences every few bars don’t use plagal cadences. The “Lydian Chromatic” concept is constructed on a faulty premise. IMO the true understanding is that “tonic function” is “true homebase”. Many scales exist. You can then move into shifting tonal bases or “atonal” non-tonic bases depending on the compositional style. Classical composers change keys and some types of jazz change the scale with every chord. Assuming one particular scale is the principal scale is an artificial, nonsensical concept because clearly different composers would reject that.
@@disinformationworld9378 there are literally gazxillions of plagal cadences in Bach chorales brother. Basically almost every time sopranos resolve down by half step you see plagal cadences. He copied the old guys from 200 years before on a lot of those… probably as a tip of the hat to the tradition. Bach even resolved on the dominant often w plagals. Ad Picardy third and russel could explain a lot of them via Lydian augmented to be honest 😂
I recently discovered George Russell's Stratusphunk and I find his compositions intriguing. I thought he was some obscure composer who never got any recognition. Just shows how jazz musicians made their own rules
My old jazz teacher gave me the book, l treasure it! I was blown away when l tried to understand it. 🤪 Thank you for this; just seems to make more sense after listening to you!! And, it’s not for sale!! 😃😆
That tonal gravity concept reminds me of something I thought of (although I'm sure not originally) to help my ear training. I learnt to recognise the intervals by feeling that they all had a gravity towards the tonic but some would get there via the 5th or the second. So 2nd and minor 2nds just drop in one step, minor and major 3rds drop down via a major second, perfect and augmented 4ths rise to the 5th which drops to the 1, 5ths drop to the 1, major and minor 6ths drop to the 5 and then to the 1 and finally major and minor sevenths resolve up to the next octave. This seems like the fundamental gravity of each interval to me, so I thought of these as archetypal resolution melodies that I could use as a signature to recognise what interval I was hearing. Obviously this approach is a bit slower than instant recognition, which I'm getting closer to, but it was a really useful stepping stone in my ear training.
It’s interesting how Russell considers the Lydian dominant scale as more dissonant, as it can be derived by using the first 7 unique notes in the overtone series.
this reminds me a lot of hindemith's model as he pitched it in ludus tonalis, but fascinatingly they come to very different conclusions in terms of the ordering and orientation of the intervals.
Now one of my favorite scales to play around in is what I'm calling the "Bebop Lydian Dominant" scale, which contains a sharp 4 instead of a natural 4, and contains both a flat 7 and a natural 7. So it's kinda like Bebop Dominant but with the 4 replaced with #4, or it's like Lydian Dominant with an added natural 7. I think the reason I like it is that the #4 from Lydian sounds much better as a tension over a major chord or a dominant chord, since it clashes much less with the major 3rd in those. I wonder if that's related to the reason why Lydian is a good scale for improvising melodies over a single chord for an extended phrase like they do in Modal Jazz?
Why do you include the natural major 7? That would only clash with the chord if it’s dominant. And yes you are correct. Lydian is often used in modal jazz because every note in the scale “works” with a major chord. Same goes with minor chords and Dorian because Dorian is essentially the relative minor of Lydian.
@@taiteyard3567 Basically I include the natural major 7 for the same reason Bebop Dominant does... it's on an offbeat, weaker, and takes less time, less emphasis in swung rhythms
@@taiteyard3567 The point of bebop scales is that if you start on a chord tone on a down beat and play continuous 8th notes then however you ascend or descend you will always stay on a chord tone. The "dominant bebop scale" referred to here works over any dominant chord. Other bebop scales exist for major 7 chords but the principle is the same.
I took a LCC class in grad school. After my brain melted and was put back together I found it was an amazing compositional tool that broke me out of a rut in my writing and playing.
The break-away from "writer's block" (yes, it happens in writing music too) is the Specific Grounding (that's the shadow of "Gravity") 😁 But, cool! Thanks for that!
This is such a useful video. Like it really blew open why they were referred to as modal. It explains why lydian made so much sense and gave support to what I find a lot in writing chord progressions. I hope to find a similar explanation or interaction of this same very concept for how things then evolve into more neosoul type sounds. I feel like you said the pallette is born of a different tonal focus but im not sure which or how to find it
As to why you don't have over 2 million subscribers? I don't know. Well I do, I mean yes obviously obscurity and the tough job of pushing through this noisy market, but the production and talent is there. I'm subscribed, love your content. Thank you for making me a better musician, you've added priceless value to my life.
i watched the entire thing now! you done it! you made the very best video on LCC! :D ( not sure that was your goal! lol) i have to say i hold you in high regard and the amount of openess you showed in this project i hope you see the pathways which pull towards a unified theory of harmony ( russell outlined an incomplete roadmap but which opened a new set of doors in a new direction ... i think of you in a totally new light now. thanks so much for the effort you put in and im just have 1 question? does it make you excited? to see whole new sets of relationships and patterns that can be used creatively?
The guitarist Ted Dunbar extended the Lydian concept with his book A System of Tonal Convergence for Improvisors, Composers, and Arrangers. Ted studied the concept with David Baker, and David told me that "Ted took it further than any of us."
well if you start from the beginning and used integer ratios of just intonation then an interval of a perfect fifth sounding together, say G and D, will produce and intermodulation frequency that is half of the lower frequency, ie. G an octave lower in this case. so it will gravitate towards G. trouble is a just intonation major third is nearly as strong interval pointing to a root 2 octaves down. it's just that in true temperament the interval is detuned and so is the intermodulation frequency.
i learned music harmony via Walter Piston's great music college basic text book: "Harmony", George Russell's book is a very interesting conceptual supplement, also Henry Mancini's methods on composing/arranging also great, more cowbell!
This is an absolutely FASCINATING idea, and I remember Adam Neely mentioning it but not going into too much detail about it in one of his long video essays about Music The--erm--the Harmonic Style of Western European Musicians. :V
This gives you a model of chord scale relationship that is used in modern day jazz education, what is left out from modern jazz education that I think is even more important/the next step to that understanding is the ability to conceptualize both modes and pitches outside your tonal center as belonging on a spectrum of ingoing (consonant) or outgoing (dissonant) tonalities. The current understanding of chord scales means everyone's first go to mode for a D-7 is Dorian but the LCC gives you a model for using all 12 pitches. This concept is present in all the solos on the album kind of blue.
"Okay, this is getting a *little* conceptual" *draws a freaking Zohar* What I like about 12tone videos is how well they speak my language. Like, I now completely understand exactly *how* freaking conceptual things are about to get.
I found this very interesting and I get the theory, but I'm not sure how much of the practical side of it is gonna stick. But that's everything to do with me and not the theorist and you definitely should make more vids about this!
My brain hurts, but this was so much fun to explore. How the heck is the .... nevermind I'm not deep enough to express why I am feeling so bamboozled, but I'm glad I know enough to feel like I'm in a kerfuffle
This is certainly an interesting (and different) way of looking at harmony, but the amount of "exceptions" doesn't sit right with me. One or two exceptions is acceptable, but in my opinion the amount of caveats he had to create for this concept tells me he might have been onto something, but didn't quite bring the idea to its logical conclusion. Much like the lydian scale itself, it's rich and worthy of utilizing, but not quite "resolved"
True, but for practical purposes that doesn't matter. The concept is most useful for opening up your ear to different chord-scale colors, especially on dominants.
great video, 12tone. My teacher hauled the LCC book out when I mentioned that the video series The Future of Jazz had a performance of Stratusphunk with Bill Evens that knocked my socks off. A sort of proof is in that performance, don't you think?
Love your transcriptions! Except Micheal brecker and I still like the work you did there in fact it’s impressive you could do it it just dislike brecker…
@@insaneevillogan Thanks! And that has to be a first, somebody who doesn't like Michael Brecker 😁 but that's all ok, we don't need to like the same food either, tastes differ
Good intro to the concept. Presentation could use some work. If you're writing and you're using your left hand you should write from right to left, so your viewer could follow you along. But of course a digital approach would be ideal. Ty for the content
Well I for one never read his stuff and the way I heard it explained didn’t make sense. Your explanations were excellent thanks for the video. And now that I understand where he was coming from I honestly can’t understand how people can even say it is wrong or subjective. I don’t mean scale choices and organizations, that is a minor issue .. I mean the fundamental idea is dead on. It starts w overtone series, and Pythagorus… yes you basically stack 3:2 vertically and create music. It is fundamental physics and no arguments. However, he has reinvented the wheel there, post Voice leading rules, tonal harmony, and 12-tet. But nothing wrong or incorrect about it. Lydian and mixolydian as concepts surround the Ionian, so for sake of “function” Ionian is the “king”. But Lydian is still the queen IMO and has the most freedom. But the thing about the dominant is the overtone scale IS the Lydian dominant. That super loc thing is the same, but tritone subbed. It’s works because it’s pulling toward Phrygian resolution. Think V4-2 to I6. That is basically Lydian ->Phrygian. And incase nobody noticed, that is what flamenco sketch and sketch of Spain was what miles was all about. So I admit this russel guy is correct.
Interesting,been studying modes ever since I heard kind of blue way back but never heard of this.I was classical taught on trombone and played in big band jazz bands when I progressed from brass bands.Just play guitar now due to dental problems and still trying to convert what I learned about theory to guitar.informative thanks
This composer gets it and will do some test flights. My current model is based on the notion of suspending the dominant while generally avoiding it, except as the bass note.
Some additional thoughts/corrections:
1) I didn't want to get too deep into the history in the intro, but if you want to know more about how Kind Of Blue came to be, Ashley Kahn's book of the same name is a good starting point.
2) To be clear, when I say that I get where the "discrepancies" folks are coming from, my point isn't that Russell is in any meaningful way wrong. It's that, by framing his model as universal and definitive, he invites that form of scrutiny, even though it's largely irrelevant to what he's actually doing. I understand the instinct to want to argue with him to find the "right" answer, even if I recognize it as a distraction from more salient and interesting lines of inquiry.
3) I played a little fast and loose with interval inversions here in order to keep things in a comfortable register, so if you noticed that sometimes I talked about going up a 5th but actually went down a 4th, that's why.
4) If you're wondering why the writing and drawings got so small while I was talking about the Lydian-derived scales, it's because I _really_ wanted to get all 7 principal scales on one page. It just wasn't possible, but I was trying my best.
5) Another reason Lydian Dominant may have been initially excluded is that it's actually the 2nd mode of Lydian Augmented. (That is, it's the same notes, just using a different one as the root.) As such, it may not have seemed necessary to him to include as its own separate scale. If so, he may have chosen to add it in later for roughly the same reason he provides space for the major scale: It's a compositionally important tool in the Western harmonic tradition, and he wants to make clear how his model interacts with it.
6) Russell does actually define some specific uses for some of the roots we skipped over, like the 5th and the 3rd. They can still be parent scales, he just positions them as parent scales of inversions. So, like, if you see Gma7 with a D in the bass, you can think of that as a G lydian scale built on D. Didn't feel worth getting into in the video, but wanted to mention it somewhere.
7) A thing I'm honestly not entirely clear on is why Russell ties the augmented dominant to the #5/b6 of Lydian Augmented instead of the 3, which can also make the same chord but is lower down the ladder. My best explanation is that it allows the root of the parent Lydian to be a chord tone, which is pretty useful, but as far as I can find he never actually says that. Still, if pressed, that's how I'd justify that decision.
8) Oh also I forgot to include the minor (major 7) chord. Treat those like normal minor chords, with their lydian root on their chordal 3rd, but use Lydian Augmented instead of normal Lydian.
9) One thing I maybe should've been clearer about is that the parent scale changes (or, at least, can change) with the chord. This is fairly evident in So What, where Davis spends 16 bars in F lydian over the Dmi7 chord, then switches to Gb lydian over the Ebmi7 chord. (With some D naturals thrown in near the end, which can be read as either a nod to Gb lydian augmented or setting up the return to F lydian when the chord changes back.) It's a way of establishing a local tonal gravity instead of a global one, although he also describes some more advanced ways of using these ideas that do allow for longer-form tonalities.
10) A thing that was impossible to capture with a short enough clip to call fair use is that, because there's no chord changes, Davis is free in his solo to play around with hypermeter in ways that might otherwise sound awkward. For example, while the clip I used was a 4-bar phrase, it actually starts in bar 4 of the solo, and his phrases vary in length throughout.
ratio 🙏💯
i purchased the book from/signed by George Russell himself shortly before he passed away, brilliant music theorist
So yeah ..It seems clear by some initially whom I learned from .. is the Lydian chromatic idea is based on a stack of perfect 5ths from any root that not really ‘arbitrarily’ discards the b9 in LydChrom that is the most outside note and when that is accomplished, the next p5 over b9 is our #5(b6) which is so handy when creating the Lydian augmented scale
1) 123#4#567.. which is also mode 3 on ascending melodic minor scale.. the most heard mode in jazz??
2) proceeding from 5th over that b6 gives us b3...b7..4.. and finally b9..... I discovered utility in the II. V cliche Dm7 DmiMa7 Dmi7 Dmi6..(
All F Lydian G7)../ D.. etc
All I see is 10 paragraphs of COPE. Stop trying so hard to make something stupid, sound not so stupid. It's stupid.
@@cowbacon5578 Hey Cow, yes lest We drift into Filo Sofie(whatever).
The idea that chords and scales were conceptually "the same thing" for the purpose of improv and composition is like...the foundation of all jazz education, and has been since George Russell pioneered the idea. That really can't be overstated - George Russell's theory is the foundation of how jazz is taught.
The problem is that George Russell bent over backwards to invent new vocabulary that didn't have much to do with practice, and other educators like Jamie Aebersold, David Baker and Jerry Coker (the "ABC's" of jazz education....lol) codified chord scales in a much easier-to-follow way that beginning improvisers could actually apply without trying to parse the absolutely buckwild book that is the Lydian Chromatic Concept.
So, with the exception of some schools like NEC and IU, nobody uses it anymore. Still fascinating, though. Berklee uses another system based off of Joseph Schillinger's work, and most schools end up using similar approach.
Hope to see a video from you explaining this foundation for jazz education! I'm seriously confused by all the different models...
Why didn't any of the jazz schools ask the actual jazz musicians like Barry Harris how they thought about music? None of the bebop players thought like they teach in universities.
Very interesting. To me it sounds as if there is a whole world of jazz theory nobody ever talks about... Can you recommend specific books to learn these things?
@@RobinJWheeler George Russell was an actual musician
This discovery of a duality reminds me of when Michael Faraday discovered a magnet and electricity were two sides of the same coin, hence electromagnetism.
So, I took George’s Lydian class back in 1979 at New England Conservatory , as well as playing in his big band ensemble performing his compositions. The Lydian concept was a really an interesting method for composing. Trouble was, George insisted that the method was fact and the only true theory to explain music. Plus he was a really bitter angry man, adding to his caustic teaching approach and insistence that the Concept was the only “right” way to consider music. I composed in a very different manner using his system, and his concept of inward and outward measuring of dissonance was really interesting and useful. But he was such a total angry teacher, treating students in unforgivable ways, that I can never think positively about him. Clearly we owe him much for the influence he had on great artists such as Miles.
ach i’m sad to read that.
@@dharmabam Anyone ever think that Groucho Marx used a "Lydian"?
Huh that's very interesting, thanks for sharing. It's kind of a shame, never meet your heroes and all that jazz
Hi David, please see my comment above, would be curious 2 c what u think, all the best!!
@@robertakerman3570 She had eyes that men adore so, and a torso even more so.
I have two editions of the “Lydian Concept”, copyrights 1959 and 2001. The earlier edition includes some wonderful little charts and a “Swiss cheese” looking card that can be placed over a grid of notes, revealing chords and their analysis via the “parent scales” from which they are derived. These charts and the “decoder” have been, for me, the most useful part of the entire book.
The newer volume has no such charts.
The Lydian method definitely has many gems, but to me it often feels like George Russel is explaining things in the most complex way possible. It sort of reminds me how for years Astronomers tried to explain the motion of the planets using complex series of circles rotating inside of circles because they _really_ wanted the planets to move in circles, before Kepler finally showed that it all could be simply modeled using ellipses. (That is, the Method feels like the circles-within-circles approach).
Russel is essentially throwing a dart at a wall and drawing the bullseye around it
Bruh i love this analogy lmao
you didn't get the details right, the circles within circles (called epicycles) were meant to explain the retrograde movement of planets caused by them all orbiting the sun and not the earth; the geocentric model is what they insisted on. copernicus reintroduced heliocentrism, and later kepler did indeee come up with elliptical orbits.
but i agree, good analogy.
I don't think you can fault them for assuming circles, it was the simplest hypothesis given the observational data they had at the time. Kepler made more accurate observations and discovered the orbits were ellipses, but didn't know why. Newton figured out the why.
I know nothing about music theory but I know that if one can't explain the concept simply then one doesn't know it good enough.
I studied, toured and recorded with George Russell. He was an amazing influence and personality. True, some of his statements and behavior would be inappropriate today, and although i still think they are inexcusable, one must be careful looking at history through today's lens and focus. I think the big mistake that people make is taking the concept literally. I think the best way to look at it, is the way someone (i dont remember who...) wrote a master's thesis on "the concept", ripped it to shreds, pointed out many holes and inconsistencies, but in the summary of their thesis pointed out that "the concept" is a method for organizing ART!!! (in this case music) and not math or science. For example, George's "ingoing outgoing" concept and "vertical, horizontal and supra-vertical" methods have helped me organize my own music ideas and in the end that's what counts. In other words I was able to create art with the help of "the concept". If you want to dismiss this, then you need to dismiss Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings because he was inspired by theater and according to his own admission, he didnt care how good the theater piece was, he enjoyed the spectacle first. You'll need to dismiss Schoeberg's "pierrot lunaire" because it's inspired by poetry that never even approaches the high standards of Shakespeare etc, how do you even evaluate Cage's music based on the I-Ching.... the list goes on and on with composers and artists (xenakis - stochastic principles for example) using various methods, inspirations etc that can be logically embraced or dismissed but somehow they still created art. so i would recommend that you roll the dice with "the concept" and if it doesnt work for you find something else. this is a situation where "it's all good" and in the end it's up to you to do you thing. Enjoy!! :-)
I agree with all you said and glad you had positive experiences with George. If he liked a student, everything would be wonderful. Again, I found his concepts unique and aesthetically useful .
But on many occasions he showed despicable behavior in dressing down students, measured on any level, completely unforgivable. Added to that was his absoluteness in his theory, having complete disdain for any other system and insisting to young students that his concept was truth.
Music theory is never true, it is a concept to help explain an art form. There is no right or wrong, it is all interpretations. A professor owes it to the student to mentor and support, not degrade or denigrate. As a student I couldn’t say anything at the time, but recognized how bad the situation was. As a professor today, I would hope to never treat a person like he did, let alone one of my students, and would never assert my musical philosophy as the only way. I’m not the genius George Russell was, but I hope I give my students, all of them, more than what I experienced back then.
@@MrDavidBHarris sorry u had a bad experience, i saw him dress some students down, he could be hard on players, but i never saw him doing anything of the "whiplash" kind, in other words engage sexist, racist and homophobic bullying. we were def afraid of him, but he did reward hard work. i'm not being nostalgic or letting him off the hook, just trying to be fair and factual. i commend you for being a better teacher and wish you only the best
@@MrDavidBHarris I only read what Ben Schwendener had to say about the man and it's almost as if you were talking about a completely different person. Don't get me wrong i am not implying that you are lying in any way. It's just that based on what i read in Ben's book i was under the impression that if anything George Russel was a gentle, open minded and wise person. Not at all the type of professor that would degrade or denigrate.
That being said while going through your comments I remembered hearing Reed Gratz say that he could be a devil ...
@@MIsweetshadow George was Ben's mentor and I'm sure they had an amazing relationship . Again, if George approved of you, he was apparently a wonderful person. I saw him destroy young players during rehearsals, swearing and hurling racial epitaphs, degrading them in front of a whole big band. At the same period, I studied and played under Jaki Byard, another musical genius( amazing pianist who played with Mingus). HE was the sweetest, most joyous person, and completely the opposite of George in class and in rehearsals. Being a genius does not grant you the right to be an awful human, and bitter angry people should remove themselves from institutions of learning.
@@MrDavidBHarris I agree with you entirely.
Oh man. one of the clearest explanations of the LCC i’ve yet encountered. hugely appreciated.
The section from 14:49 for the next 30 seconds helped me understand what you meant by "Lydian isn't the color, it's the palette", thanks for that. That's a good modal mindset in general, though I never thought about it in painting terms before.
Tonality has:
Brightness / Darkness
Emotional Coloure / Temperance Hue
That's also the allure of music - it's ability to preform an organized mix of emotions (something that is [closer than] next to impossible to achieve even with meditative practice)
Wow! That was brilliant. Does your brain ever allow to sleep at night? You're an amazing artist. I was introduced to the Lydian Chromatic Concept 40 years ago by my friend Fletcher. He. said "That's why Coltrane sounds like Coltrane". I copied his copy of the book, which I happened across earlier today as I was sorting though my music library, so when I saw this vid title I had to catch my breath. Well done.
7:58
What I find really interesting here is that if you *don't* move the minor ninth, you can start replacing notes starting with the end of that list and get the list of modes in that "brightest to darkest" order. Lydian, with the natural 4 is Ionian, minor 7 is Mixolydian, minor 3 is Dorian, minor 6th is Aeolian, minor 9/2 is Phrygian, then the diminished 5 is Locrian. Fascinating stuff, idk what it means.
That's because the major scale and its modes are constructed by stacking fifths above and below a root. Lydian, the brightest mode, is found by stacking 6 fifths upon the root, major by going 1 fifth down and 5 up, etc. In tuning theory these kinds of scales are known as "moment of symmetry" scales, where you stack a generating interval (a fifth in this case) and reduce the intervals to a single period (an octave in this case) until you get a scale where there are only 2 step sizes.
There is only one person in Boston teaching LCC, his name is Ben Schwendener and he was George Russell's closest student for decades. Maybe you could interview him?
Andy Wasserman is also teaching the Concept with a particular focus on preserving George's perspective. A favored student of George's and very close friend right up until his passing. Andy taught his classes while George was travelling with his band, and even wrote the Forward in the latest edition. He would be the one to talk to for the most accurate representation of the Concept. I believe Ben teaches "Organic Music Theory" which is his own translation and expansion of the Concept, and is not aiming to be a faithful portrayal of the George's work.
Ween uses these concepts, albeit, in a very different way on "Exactly Where I'm At" from the White Pepper album.
@@hippojuice23 Ha! Yeah, just noticed that one recently. Responding a year later, but psych music in general arrives at similar conclusions from a different route.
I was in the class with Ben, he was a bit of a d-k as well. Horrible class. So dull. Absolutely difficult to u derstand as he was not a very good teacher (GR, I can’t speak to Ben) and as another commenter said, it was his way or the highway.
I had no clue; this absolutely describes what I’ve been experimenting with over the last year or so. Thank you for putting it all into words. I noticed some of these intervallic relationships described in the concept, but I hadn’t dug any deeper than writing a few notes down and consistently practicing what I had recognized. Good to hear that I’m not on some random tangent lol
I have the original. Lydian chromatic dismissed by many but still is has lots of utility. Great video.. worthy of a few hearings !!
It ought to be professionally scanned and made available to people who wish to learn from it, at something like an affordable price.
the 1985 reprint of the 1964 edition is the one I have. Russell is able to bring a discussion of Ornette into the mix, and emphasise that the concept was not a simplistic modal jazz methodology. Its primary purpose was to enable the player or composer to utilise all the resources of the chromatic scale in any environment.
In practice that meant polytonal chords, interval sequences, scales, melodic modulation, using the Coltrane tritonic system, Bartok's axis theory and just about any other compositional method you can name, but given a fresh focus of being relatable to any given Lydian chromatic tonic.
Russell was offering the ability to create compositions that work on multiple levels simultaneously, where different rhythms, types of harmonic activity and movement could co-exist with one another.
I got really into LCCOTO at the end of my bachelors/start of my masters. Then I went down the harmolodics rabbit hole. Now I make 4 chord shit lol
i think we all go through these phases. some years we want literally every chord, other years we just want one
That was my Reich phase haha
🤔is this just basic to you?
K75493MT
(1) 7 keys _
(2) (perfect)5ths _
(3) 4ths_
(4) add9ths_
(5) use3rds _
(6) Melody _
(7) (simple melody using) Triads
@@esthersmith3056 "...some years we just want one" : Until it zombies
Thanks for making a vid about this. I tried reading the book a couple years ago when I couldn't find any good videos explaining the concept. It was a very difficult read & I eventually kind of gave up on learning it. This vid really tied the concept together well & it finally clicked for me to an extent.
Would love to see more vids tying back to this concept - maybe breaking down songs in a way that ties back to this mode of analysis. Thanks for this vid though. Gave me a lot to think about. I appreciate your hard work.
🙏
You drew a voltage divider for the word "divides." You also remarked that the universe isn't cyclical. My kind of guy.
I myself have wanted to describe music with abstract algebra, in an alternative fashion to (or reformulation of) the tonnetz.
There's a dude called Stefano Morchio who is doing work on creating some interesting mathematical spaces in which to represent 12TET music. There's a great video where he plays through an Allan Holdsworth composition (Sphere of Innocence) and his program maps the pitch class set parsimony on a network graph
@@reubennb2859 thanks for the info!
Thanks! George Russell, Barry Harris, and Bergonzi I had to study on my own even though I went to 6 years of some highly regarded jazz schools. Just about everything is there in the work of those three. More people need to know about this stuff!
7 mins and 31 sec in so far and i had to stop again to say , what a greatjob im so impressed . i been thinking about this for years and never seen anyone talk justice about this as a topic and how thought out the effort here you have taken and the way you describe it is masterfully done video so far. ( so much so that you have really transformed my perspective towards you in general, i can see you been developing yourself more and more overtime you are doing so great .
Great exploration, thanks! I devoured The Lydian Chromatic Concept while at university. Even though I was neck deep in classical studies at the time, it rocked my world, and even though I don't often consciously think about these ideas, they constantly inform what I do in both jazz- and rock-based playing. Russell was clearly brilliant. Cheers!
@GOLV4 Great question. During my studies I had the marvellous opportunity to study composition privately. Something my first composition teacher insisted we work through was Paul Hindemith's The Craft of Musical Composition, Books 1 (Theory) and 2 (Exercises in Two-Part Writing). Those books seemed a bit daunting at first, but I'm not exaggerating to say that I still think of them often. And I say that as someone who's definitely not a 'theory for the sake of theory' guy. That subsequently led me to dip into Hindemith's other books, such as Traditional Harmony. But I'd say if you even just begin to do the work laid out in the Composition books, it's a well deep enough to drink from for a lifetime.
The other thing that I'd say was very important to my education and subsequent musical life was having literally copied out, by hand, works of some of my favourite composers. When I was doing that most heavily (in my teens and early twenties) it was largely Bach and Penderecki, funnily enough. But I got the idea from Bach, as he learned the craft of composition by copying out scores from his favourites such as Buxtehude. I figured, if it was good enough for JSB, it was good enough for me. ;-)
I realise this would seem to have little to do with jazz per se, but let's face it, the differences in musical genre are like those of 'dialects' rather than 'language'. An egg is an egg, whether it's used to create a soufflé or poached. The result is a question of style. 🙂I hope that's of some help.
"A good chord progression was a mix between a roadmap and an obstacle course." 100% appropriate analogy, thank you!
Peace
🤔... He could've just said Parcore.
😁 JS
Not like a just watched a video from 8-bit Music Theory on Lydian Scale this week. These two videos compliment each other well. 👌
To post this comment without posting the link... 🧐
@@a2ndopynyn I do not want to post a link of another person's channel in the comment section of a channel driving traffic away from a person's channel. RUclips Courtesy.
If you are interested, look up, "8 Bit Music Theory," and it will be the first channel to pop up. Their latest video is on the mode.
@@CAPAE See, the way to do it is to post that one here, but also post this one over there. That way, viewers of each channel can check out the other one...
That was really fascinating. I'd heard of LCC before, but it always seemed theoretical and impenetrable. With your adept explanation, it now seems practical and accessible. Thanks
“we can’t do all that much with a note” *Drone music has entered the chat*
Great video! Despite the multiple errors in Harmonic Series interpretation and proprietary naming conventions that did not stick to mainstream academia for obvious reasons, Russell's LCC theory has really powerful intent, which, to this day, has the strongest potential to be developed into a thoroughly multicultural music education paradigm. Clearly, there is some confusion between the Harmonic Series and the Circle of Fifth (the Lydian scale by the first 7 fifths) going on in Russell's book. The sequential note hierarchy and tuning approximations (compared to the chromatic 12TET ) are quite different for the Harmonic Series and the Circle of Fifth (assuming we are dealing with the perfect natural fifths). Accurate examination and comparison of those prime matters may bring exciting insights and a broader vision of possible musical outcomes.
It's not my intent to hijack the comments, so I apologize in advance. But, I found my notes on Rhythmic Gravity. Here are the main points from my notes taken in 1989-90(!). There are few instances where my notes kinda don't add up . I couldn't begin to reinterpret or to decipher my mistakes in transcription from 33 years ago. :).
Rhythm is any phenomenon that has recognizably separate particles separated by regular or irregular intervals of time and space has rhythm (sic).
Tempo (pulse) - the rate of flow of constituent pars of the whole. Further sub-division of tempo according to strong & weak (metric cells or sub-divisions of the basic pulse)
Rhythmic modes produce Rhythmic States. Overall combinations produces the level of Rhythmic Gravity.
Rhythmic States
I Pro-Tempo dominant textural movement projects Pro-Metric and/or Pan Metric phrases. Reinforces constant single fixed tempo
II Pan Temp -- succession of Pro & Pan Metric phrases reflecting two or more metronome tempos
II A Tempo - one or more singular of complex rhythmic velocity scales (Rubato)
Modes of Rhythmic Gravity
Pro-Metric - constant meter over a constant pulse, rhythmic phrases that project & comply with a constant meter
Pan-Metric - constant pulse & variable meter (varying sequence of meters) or any identical constant meter
Pro-Velocity - pulse not constant. based on a pulse that "moves" (tempo zones) underlying pulse as movable (rubato) -- metronome is divided into 3 "zones"
Pan Velocity - pulse not constant.. velocity based on _several_ "tempo zones" 'A' Velocity accelerates and decelerates . each not must increase or decrease the pulse of the previous note
Levels of Rhythmic Gravity
1) Homogenous - most ingoing. projects both pro- and/or pan-metric phrase over constant pulse.
2) Pan Sequential -- succession of metronomic pulses (ex. grave-allegro-piu mosso within one movement)
3) Super-Imposed -- two contrasting moods super-imposed (ex. 6/8 over 4/4)
4) Pan Sequential (sic) -- a succession of contrasting moods (Pro/pan/A tempo rhythmic phrases.
I went to more than one George Russell concert. One of them he used a full orchestra and was conducting. He went chronologically through its development explaining the concept as he went along. Since I had his book it was easy to listen to. When he got to the year 1959, he said "if I turn around and no one is here I will understand". What he was doing by 1959 was a little more Avant guard than what Miles was doing. Actually it was a little more Avant guard than Ornette. This concert was around 1975.
This is the best introduction to the LCCTO for a general audience I've seen yet. Bravo! I've been studying it for the past three years, out of my own curiosity.
Centering the Lydian scale is intuitive to me. LCCTO is the "users manual" to the Circle of Fifths, the treatise that explains why the Circle of Fifths is such a powerful musical tool. To be absolutely clear, this is my own statement, not what the LCCTO advocates.
While whole swaths of the concept are useful and practical (Ben Schwendener's Organic Music Theory book is fantastic for teaching the applications of the LCCTO), the LCCTO's major challenge for wide-spread acceptance is the tendency for people to want it to be a "silver bullet" theory, one coherent music theory to explain EVERYTHING. It's not that. But neither does any of the other competing concepts for organizing theoretical concepts in music, including Schillinger's System of Musical Composition. No "unified theory of music" exists but Schillinger's and Russell 's come closest to such thing.
I wish more folks gave LCCTO a fair chance rather than rejecting it because parts of it are inconsistent. Applause for your effort here, and willingness to keep an open mind to what is useful from the LCCTO while objectively addressing some of its inconsistencies.
Any scaled can be referenced from any of its letters, but this is just enharmonics. f lydian is another way of saying d dorian. i've spent many many hours trying to understand why these enharmonics exist and how they don't confuse the crap out of musicians given that any piece of music can be retold using its enharmonics. what i've come to understand is that more important than the naming schemes are the notes themselves. so i decided to make learning chord progressions easy on myself by referencing each chord scale to the same letter, Cb, C, C#. this constitutes one position on my guitar, and i can play chord changes by going through the different modes of Cb, C and C#. then i can expand that into the D's, G's, E's, F's, A's and B's to cover the full range of my instrument. what i've come to realize is that chord changes are actually mode changes of the same root letter, thus a real chord change involves chord-scales that have one or more note difference. when it comes to progressions, there's ways of simplifying and complexifying it. you could even use the same scale over a set of changes that you recognize to be apart of that scale. with regards to the 9b, i think it's interesting because i've always thought to myself that if i don't fully understand why a musician played a certain chord or note, i just say "because it sounds good". of course it probably came from a theory, but if you didnt know the theory you would still know that it sounds good. there are infinite possibilities with music. theory just attempts to explain and reproduce a given sound, like a language. victor wooten says you're only a half-step away from a right note, so you could play the chromatic scale over every chord change in every key and let the chord changes do all the work. you could even play a totally random scale and just make sure to move over a half-step if you hit a bad sounding note.
I studied with Russell for two years at NEC back in the '80s. If I remember correctly, at the time, he stated that the Lydian Dominant scale was established as a separate scale because of its use in Miles Davis's "In A Silent Way".
His LCC Theory was being developed to encompass rhythm although I recall it being much more complicated and fraught.
I found his distinctions between Vertical, Horizontal, Supra Vertical, and Supra Horizontal (? pace, my failing memory of things from 33 years ago). The analogy was to a trip up the Mississippi River. Vertical is like visiting all of the towns along the way (Coleman Hawkins), Horizontal is visiting only the major cities (Lester Young), Supra Vertical was getting in a rocket ship and zooming into space and back to all of the cities along the way (John Coltrane), and Supra Horizontal was to get into a rocket ship and zoom over it all from New Orleans to Chicago (Ornate Coleman).
Additionally, I thought his delineation between Ingoing Vertical Melodies (Absolute or Chromatically Enhanced), Outgoing Vertical Melodies (Chromatic Scale Interval Melody), Ingoing Horizontal Melodies (Absolute or Chromatically Enhanced), Outgoing Horizontal Melodies (Chromatic Scale Interval Melody) were also fascinating/liberating ways of approaching improvisation.
Ultimately, I always felt like you had to be in his class to fully understand what he was talking about (also, his tangents were often the best part of the class). The verbiage of the book was necessarily dense to try to avoid misinterpretation but it was often a tough read.
I studied with Russell for 2 semesters in the mid 90s. I agree that you had to be there in class to really absorb the concept. Our writing assignments were fun and challenging at the same time. Performing each other's pieces was great. He didn't seem any more bitter than anyone else that looked back on their career.
I would be very interested to learn more about what you mean by his theory was being developped to encompass rythm.
I heard Ben Schwendener mentioning something like rythmical gravity in an interview but unfortunately he didn't elaborate.
Is that what you meant by his theory being developped to encompass rythm ?
@@MIsweetshadow Yes! That's it. It was more like Rhythmic Gravity. (I have my notes in a box somewhere but I couldn't stomach the notion of digging for them.) It was harder to understand than the "regular" LCC
@@laredo4242 I also didn't find him to be bitter. He was sometimes prickly or a bit impatient. But, he'd also tell stories and just casually drop names like Miles, Trade, Bill Evans. So, it was a good trade off IMO
@@jameseason1759 Interesting. I always thought that there had be something more that just the scales he talks about in the lydian chromatic concept volume 1. You can sort of guess that there is something missing because it never totally makes sense.
Unfortunately no one talks about that. If it wasn't for Ben Schwendener mentioning it I would never have heard of it. I guess he (Russell) addressed that topic in one the unpublished volumes. I desperately hope that these will be made available at some point. I spent 5 years studying that book but so far it never paid off which is frustrating in many ways because you can feel that there is potential in there.
You have got me all the more intrigued now that you said it was harder to understand than the regular LCC. By any chance, if not in one of your box, do you know if these informations can be found somewhere on the internet ?
At 1:09 happy to sell you my original book, I never even look at it (had to buy as textbook for his class at NEC).
Such a well-crafted exploration of a tenant of modal jazz improvisation! Thank you for producing this. I learned a good deal.
Loved this! Re: "If that were true, then why do so many composers write in major" - I think it's because, in major, the tonal gravity can pull you one step beyond the tonic. Being able to overshoot home a bit is as musically useful as the tonal gravity itself.
In this one little RUclips comment, I genuinely believe you have adequately explained the tonal gradient between writing compelling dramatic "Western" progressions and jamming over mostly static pedals and vamps.
I think one of the most eye opening experiences for me when it comes to understanding harmony was reading a paper about how Zappa self-taught/may have accidentally heard about Lydian theory in his own education. His use of "Lydian-based tonal thinking" and subsequent deriving his melodic and harmonic ideas from this concept, for me, made sense of why pop song cord progressions are the way they are and why I enjoyed some live Pink Floyd bootleg recordings.
Everything started to make sense: modally approaching jams over vamps, the i-VI-III-VII progression, modulations, how to use a diminished 7th chord, why Eb major feels darker than C major yet D major feels brighter than C major.
George Russell went a little too crazy obsessive developing a system when all he really had to do was say "think of Lydian as essentially almost too stable to write compelling progressions with, but still use it and its parallel scales when thinking about how to build harmony: whether that is a canvas for improvisation or foundation for building compelling progressions"
I'm glad you feel your audience is ready for this.
Now to watch again, take notes, and research.
I've always had a hell of a time conceptualizing the circle of fifths and other traditional Western classical ways of conceptualizing scales and chords. This video confused me a little near the end, but I still found it easier to understand that most of the music theory that I formally learned in choir and high school/college band.
Imagine going to the channel where the host doodles while talking about music and whining about the host doodling while talking about music. Another great video!
Very interesting. I had a similar idea of why in jazz dorian is preferred over aeolian: because the b6 is almost telling that we are in the fourth chord, whereas the dorian sixth is more neutral.
Anyways this theory also explains why some modes have less stable tonic, which also many people noticed when trying to compose in different modes.
And brighter
In LCC that's because the Minor chord(VI mode of Lydian scale) is the vertical representation of the lydian scale. The eolian scale or all the scales with no #4th and a natural 4th is a horizontal scale. Horizontal scales want to resolve to the chord wich is lydian. That's why eolian wants to resolve to a minor but when you play Dorian sounds like you can go to anywhere ou just be in Dorian all day.
Horizontal scale is goal oriented. Vertical scale is the lydian itself and tonal gravity can leave you to any place you want to resolve. And to make this resolution even more stronger(If you want so) you can use a Horizontal scale to resolve on the major/relative minor chord.
You can se aeolian as minor with a dissonance (b6). C lydian with dissonance (natural 4th 12 T.O)
Fun fact: The b6(F in Am) is the lydian tonic(F lydian). A minor scale(horizontal) resolving on the minor chord. F lydian(passive force wich contains A minor eolian (horizontal scale active force) resolves to C lydian(Am chord), Russel call that duality, the lydian scale can be vertical and horizontal. That depends of the musical context. Of course.
There are a lot of awesome things about LCC to explore. Vertical Tonal Gravity, Horizontal Tonal Gravity and Supravertical Tonal gravity. I'm still learning. A lot of possibilities. Very cool. The book is hard to understand (at first looks like chord scale theory but it's not). I really recomend you (if you want to)to look for private lessons with someone who learned LCC.
It's really important to keep in mind George Russell's background in jazz to understand this theory. In jazz, the tonic major chord is virtually always a Maj7#4. That is the most consonant home cord.
And it is of course rooted in the harmonic series. The harmonic series has a #4, not a natural 4.
The natural 4 is almost never used in major chords. Only m7 (m11) chords and suspended chords typically use the natural 4 in jazz (often diminished voicings as well).
The #4 and in general the Lydian scale is the most consonant scale built on the tonic in jazz. It just sounds more stable in extended harmony. And that's because it's based on the harmonic series.
Doesn't #4 clash with 5?
@@doublespoonco no, it depends. If there is a Maj7 between the 5 and #4 (#11 in this case), it doesn't sound very dissonant, like the M7 between the root and 7th.
And sometimes the #4 can be even put against the 5 and it doesn't sound very dissonant if the chord is voiced with the m2nd in the middle. They call these "crunchy" voicings
Another example would be putting the 2 right next to the m3 in a m9th chord. If it's voiced with the m2nd cluster in the middle, it can sound great, even beautiful
The 4th on C major sounds more dissonant because obscures the quality of the chord. That's why Russel classifies as 11 Tonal order.
#4 with 5 can clash but you still can hear the major chord so it's not a dissonance.
I'm not a music theorist or very experienced in formal music theory - I'm a guitarist, but that's about it. But, it seems to me like there are many areas in this theory which seem sort of crudely stapled together: the minor 9th thing, the "horizontal" scales being defined by a perfect fourth, etc. If you have to make all sorts of accommodations and exceptions, what you have is not a consistent theory guided by a set of principles. This might be the chemistry student in me, but the data doesn't fit your hypothesis, you need to change your hypothesis. It might be a good approximation, but this sort of behavior is a sign that there is a better, more fundamental approximation.
The “fundamental thing” is the overtone series and using 12TET to approximate it. Everything else is culture and taste ;) My own ears are constantly evolving, and things that used to sound like garbage to me I can now identify and they sound much more pleasant now that I have some context. So that argues against a fundamental universally applicable explanation of harmony.
Also: having recently gotten into trying to play Bach on the piano and now starting to hear counterpoint in my head better, I think discussion of harmony in the absence of melody/rhythm is not particularly meaningful.
I feel the same way, but it's also good to note the usefulness of taking a theory that doesn't quite work and seeing what you can discover and do with it. in this case, through exploring this theory some of the foundations of modern jazz were found, even if the core assertions seem bunk at this stage.
Also, never forget: the other potential outcome for a discrepancy in your theory is that there's something you don't know yet. Leave no stone unturned, and like with this video, it's good to not forget the ones that didn't turn out quite right.
@@Th3EpitapH Bingo! This is exactly how science progresses. Once upon a time, there was phlogiston . . .
The Lydian concept is an "ear" concept. It is perfectly suited for gradually "going outside" in the most logical (to your ear) way.
my knowledge of music theory is pretty limited but if I understand this correctly, this model actually seems to be pretty good at describing some postpunk and postmetal band's approaches.
If you look at e.g. Amenra (Razoreater, Pain and their other songs) they regularly use one chord as an anchor and provide variety by keeping the stable root/palette and leading a song through melody, not harmony.
🤔... Harmony is an accompaniment (chaperone), where the Melody is the simplified piece (smaller sibling)
So, review the "Parent Notes" to review the Scales (available ladder), and you might visualize more of the Concept
(Remember, I didn't say you were wrong)
That would also describe why so many jazz musicians use Dorian instead of Aeolian in minor horizontal improvisation (not based on chords). Because the 6th mode of the Lydian scale is the Dorian mode, as the #4 from the Lydian parent scale becomes the #6 in the derived minor (Dorian) scale and the VI degree in the Dorian mode. Of course all of that said, while I’m still using Ionian major based terminology for the sake of clarity
Fascinating video, and a great complement to my usual explanations on the origins of modal jazz and modal music. Haven't run into something that challenges my conception of modal ideas this much in a while, so I'm excited to start ruminating on this. Thanks for the research and the work!
Hi, idk if you read comments but this video reminded me a lot of Edmond Costere and his theory, which I find to be much more refined... and yet I've never seen anyone on RUclips discussing his work. Besides occasional studies and papers in English, French, German and Portuguese I've never seen anyone talking about it.
I enjoy the concept of tonal gravity, and this was a great video that helped to de-mystify the lydian chromatic concept that for me as a jazz student in a public university in the 2000s, it was a sort of forbidden knowledge that only the heppest of cats knew about (and the book was too expensive to buy for somebody eating ramen)
As a casual musician, this was a really lucid explanation of something I was never quite able to get my head around before. Thank you!
15 mins 17 sec in and fantastic! you grasp something about LCC i have never seen another person express understanding ! you are doing such a fantastic job on this video!
10 mins in now, you have done it at least in my mind sir. ( that is, you have reached an elite level of music theory understanding that is one step closer to seeing the unified therory of harmony) but more impressive is you have put the work in and effort to get to a point few have even tried this si significant and i apprecitae you and hold you in high regard.
Really like the visual timeline useful for going back concepts/comments
How would Russell explain a plagal cadence??? According to him the perfect fourth doesn’t want to come back to the root at all?
Not defending his obviously logically flawed concepts but the “plagal cadence” is rarely used by composers. Try and find examples of phrases ending with this cadence in classical period for example. If it does happen it’s exceptionally rare. It basically doesn’t “exist” as a cadence. Even Bach chorales which have cadences every few bars don’t use plagal cadences.
The “Lydian Chromatic” concept is constructed on a faulty premise.
IMO the true understanding is that “tonic function” is “true homebase”. Many scales exist. You can then move into shifting tonal bases or “atonal” non-tonic bases depending on the compositional style. Classical composers change keys and some types of jazz change the scale with every chord.
Assuming one particular scale is the principal scale is an artificial, nonsensical concept because clearly different composers would reject that.
@@disinformationworld9378 there are literally gazxillions of plagal cadences in Bach chorales brother. Basically almost every time sopranos resolve down by half step you see plagal cadences. He copied the old guys from 200 years before on a lot of those… probably as a tip of the hat to the tradition. Bach even resolved on the dominant often w plagals. Ad Picardy third and russel could explain a lot of them via Lydian augmented to be honest 😂
@Johann Sebastian Bach came back from the dead to correct this mf
I recently discovered George Russell's Stratusphunk and I find his compositions intriguing. I thought he was some obscure composer who never got any recognition. Just shows how jazz musicians made their own rules
My old jazz teacher gave me the book, l treasure it! I was blown away when l tried to understand it. 🤪 Thank you for this; just seems to make more sense after listening to you!! And, it’s not for sale!! 😃😆
I think this is a really fair representation and echoed my thoughts on the book
That tonal gravity concept reminds me of something I thought of (although I'm sure not originally) to help my ear training. I learnt to recognise the intervals by feeling that they all had a gravity towards the tonic but some would get there via the 5th or the second. So 2nd and minor 2nds just drop in one step, minor and major 3rds drop down via a major second, perfect and augmented 4ths rise to the 5th which drops to the 1, 5ths drop to the 1, major and minor 6ths drop to the 5 and then to the 1 and finally major and minor sevenths resolve up to the next octave.
This seems like the fundamental gravity of each interval to me, so I thought of these as archetypal resolution melodies that I could use as a signature to recognise what interval I was hearing. Obviously this approach is a bit slower than instant recognition, which I'm getting closer to, but it was a really useful stepping stone in my ear training.
It’s interesting how Russell considers the Lydian dominant scale as more dissonant, as it can be derived by using the first 7 unique notes in the overtone series.
C# works great on Cmaj7#11. Warne Marsh had a scale he called the two octave major that included this note
Thanks. You got me closer to understanding this than anyone else...
this reminds me a lot of hindemith's model as he pitched it in ludus tonalis, but fascinatingly they come to very different conclusions in terms of the ordering and orientation of the intervals.
Now one of my favorite scales to play around in is what I'm calling the "Bebop Lydian Dominant" scale, which contains a sharp 4 instead of a natural 4, and contains both a flat 7 and a natural 7. So it's kinda like Bebop Dominant but with the 4 replaced with #4, or it's like Lydian Dominant with an added natural 7.
I think the reason I like it is that the #4 from Lydian sounds much better as a tension over a major chord or a dominant chord, since it clashes much less with the major 3rd in those.
I wonder if that's related to the reason why Lydian is a good scale for improvising melodies over a single chord for an extended phrase like they do in Modal Jazz?
Why do you include the natural major 7? That would only clash with the chord if it’s dominant. And yes you are correct. Lydian is often used in modal jazz because every note in the scale “works” with a major chord. Same goes with minor chords and Dorian because Dorian is essentially the relative minor of Lydian.
Because it's a bebop scale, which has 8 tones. CDEF#GABbBC
@@taiteyard3567 Basically I include the natural major 7 for the same reason Bebop Dominant does... it's on an offbeat, weaker, and takes less time, less emphasis in swung rhythms
@@taiteyard3567 The point of bebop scales is that if you start on a chord tone on a down beat and play continuous 8th notes then however you ascend or descend you will always stay on a chord tone. The "dominant bebop scale" referred to here works over any dominant chord. Other bebop scales exist for major 7 chords but the principle is the same.
I'm going to be watching this video on repeat for a few years in my quest to fully understand everything that was said.
Dang, that was heavy. Thanks for the excellent video!
I took a LCC class in grad school. After my brain melted and was put back together I found it was an amazing compositional tool that broke me out of a rut in my writing and playing.
The break-away from "writer's block" (yes, it happens in writing music too) is the Specific Grounding (that's the shadow of "Gravity")
😁 But, cool! Thanks for that!
I am learning guitar and music theory interest me. This one was a bit advanced. But I took away a few things. Very well done nice drawings too .
I appreciate all the drawings, and how you synced it with the audio. =)
This may be the most important video I've ever watched. Whether or not it is fact is irrelevant to me. I'm willing to work within these axioms.
2:07
Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighborhood
We build models to uncover what we hear. I have needed this phrase for 40 years.
This is such a useful video. Like it really blew open why they were referred to as modal. It explains why lydian made so much sense and gave support to what I find a lot in writing chord progressions. I hope to find a similar explanation or interaction of this same very concept for how things then evolve into more neosoul type sounds. I feel like you said the pallette is born of a different tonal focus but im not sure which or how to find it
This is a fascinating video!
But after watching it I’m exhausted.
As to why you don't have over 2 million subscribers? I don't know. Well I do, I mean yes obviously obscurity and the tough job of pushing through this noisy market, but the production and talent is there. I'm subscribed, love your content. Thank you for making me a better musician, you've added priceless value to my life.
i watched the entire thing now! you done it! you made the very best video on LCC! :D ( not sure that was your goal! lol) i have to say i hold you in high regard and the amount of openess you showed in this project i hope you see the pathways which pull towards a unified theory of harmony ( russell outlined an incomplete roadmap but which opened a new set of doors in a new direction ...
i think of you in a totally new light now. thanks so much for the effort you put in and im just have 1 question? does it make you excited? to see whole new sets of relationships and patterns that can be used creatively?
I was waiting for this video, thank you, i one tried to follow the book but it flew over my head conpletely
When I learned about this it was described in terms of Quartile Harmony even though I had already studied the modes of the Major Scale.
Amazing presentation 🙏 you are really perfecting this teaching method and your knowledge and organizational skills are impressive
The guitarist Ted Dunbar extended the Lydian concept with his book A System of Tonal Convergence for Improvisors, Composers, and Arrangers. Ted studied the concept with David Baker, and David told me that "Ted took it further than any of us."
well if you start from the beginning and used integer ratios of just intonation then an interval of a perfect fifth sounding together, say G and D, will produce and intermodulation frequency that is half of the lower frequency, ie. G an octave lower in this case. so it will gravitate towards G. trouble is a just intonation major third is nearly as strong interval pointing to a root 2 octaves down. it's just that in true temperament the interval is detuned and so is the intermodulation frequency.
I love how your left-handedness led you write right to left.
i learned music harmony via Walter Piston's great music college basic text book: "Harmony", George Russell's book is a very interesting conceptual supplement, also Henry Mancini's methods on composing/arranging also great, more cowbell!
This is an absolutely FASCINATING idea, and I remember Adam Neely mentioning it but not going into too much detail about it in one of his long video essays about Music The--erm--the Harmonic Style of Western European Musicians. :V
Omg im so happy u made a video on this , made my day such an interesting concept
This gives you a model of chord scale relationship that is used in modern day jazz education, what is left out from modern jazz education that I think is even more important/the next step to that understanding is the ability to conceptualize both modes and pitches outside your tonal center as belonging on a spectrum of ingoing (consonant) or outgoing (dissonant) tonalities. The current understanding of chord scales means everyone's first go to mode for a D-7 is Dorian but the LCC gives you a model for using all 12 pitches. This concept is present in all the solos on the album kind of blue.
You played Emi⁷ and I needed to take a break to go listen to _Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake_
Ive been listening to George Russell's Living Time Orchestra recently
"Okay, this is getting a *little* conceptual" *draws a freaking Zohar*
What I like about 12tone videos is how well they speak my language. Like, I now completely understand exactly *how* freaking conceptual things are about to get.
i am 3 mins and 52 sec into your video, and i have to say absolutley masterfully thoughtout and i am impressed already. It really impresses me :D
I found this very interesting and I get the theory, but I'm not sure how much of the practical side of it is gonna stick. But that's everything to do with me and not the theorist and you definitely should make more vids about this!
Trying to explore LCCTO in 20 minutes sounds insane.
My brain hurts, but this was so much fun to explore. How the heck is the .... nevermind I'm not deep enough to express why I am feeling so bamboozled, but I'm glad I know enough to feel like I'm in a kerfuffle
This is certainly an interesting (and different) way of looking at harmony, but the amount of "exceptions" doesn't sit right with me. One or two exceptions is acceptable, but in my opinion the amount of caveats he had to create for this concept tells me he might have been onto something, but didn't quite bring the idea to its logical conclusion. Much like the lydian scale itself, it's rich and worthy of utilizing, but not quite "resolved"
True, but for practical purposes that doesn't matter. The concept is most useful for opening up your ear to different chord-scale colors, especially on dominants.
I listened to Ghost Notes at work today...now this..awesome!
This is a fascinating example of sounding like a load of old bollocks in theory but making sense in practice.
Remember, theory follows practice...
It's interesting that as a guitarist I've found my way to a lot of these sorts of things (including Barry Harris b6), just by experimenting...
I'd love to get your thoughts on Paul Hindemith's book "The Craft of Musical Composition."
great video, 12tone. My teacher hauled the LCC book out when I mentioned that the video series The Future of Jazz had a performance of Stratusphunk with Bill Evens that knocked my socks off. A sort of proof is in that performance, don't you think?
It's only a matter of time before a lunatic starts a RUclips channel called "Sharp Four Music"
Love your transcriptions! Except Micheal brecker and I still like the work you did there in fact it’s impressive you could do it it just dislike brecker…
@@insaneevillogan Thanks! And that has to be a first, somebody who doesn't like Michael Brecker 😁 but that's all ok, we don't need to like the same food either, tastes differ
Good intro to the concept. Presentation could use some work. If you're writing and you're using your left hand you should write from right to left, so your viewer could follow you along. But of course a digital approach would be ideal. Ty for the content
Well I for one never read his stuff and the way I heard it explained didn’t make sense. Your explanations were excellent thanks for the video. And now that I understand where he was coming from I honestly can’t understand how people can even say it is wrong or subjective. I don’t mean scale choices and organizations, that is a minor issue .. I mean the fundamental idea is dead on. It starts w overtone series, and Pythagorus… yes you basically stack 3:2 vertically and create music. It is fundamental physics and no arguments. However, he has reinvented the wheel there, post Voice leading rules, tonal harmony, and 12-tet. But nothing wrong or incorrect about it. Lydian and mixolydian as concepts surround the Ionian, so for sake of “function” Ionian is the “king”. But Lydian is still the queen IMO and has the most freedom. But the thing about the dominant is the overtone scale IS the Lydian dominant. That super loc thing is the same, but tritone subbed. It’s works because it’s pulling toward Phrygian resolution. Think V4-2 to I6. That is basically Lydian ->Phrygian. And incase nobody noticed, that is what flamenco sketch and sketch of Spain was what miles was all about. So I admit this russel guy is correct.
Re: Aug 7 chord on #5 vs 3rd of G lydian aug
[ON #5]D#-G-B- (aug triad), C#(b7)
non-chord scale tones E,F#,A ( b9,#9,#4)
[ON 3rd] B-D#-G (aug triad), A(b7)
non-chord scale tones C#-E-F# ( 9,4/11,5 )
Both chords contain root (G), on #5 non- scale tones typical ALT9,5 jazz scale,on 3 atypical natural 9,4/11, dissonant nat 5 with #5/b6.
Interesting,been studying modes ever since I heard kind of blue way back but never heard of this.I was classical taught on trombone and played in big band jazz bands when I progressed from brass bands.Just play guitar now due to dental problems and still trying to convert what I learned about theory to guitar.informative thanks
This composer gets it and will do some test flights. My current model is based on the notion of suspending the dominant while generally avoiding it, except as the bass note.
Outstanding video, thank you a lot!