The Lydian Chromatic Concept Ep. 1: George Russell

In the first episode of the Lydian Chromatic series on "Theory with Bob," ‪@bobbyspellman‬ discusses composer and theorist George Russell's background as well as the origins of the Lydian Chromatic Concept and the foundational principles of the theory.
George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization: www.lydianchromaticconcept.co...
Stratusphunk: The Life and Works of George Russell: www.amazon.com/Stratusphunk-L...
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[@jimmcguffie2914]

Thanks for referencing/bibliography. Acknowledging the past masters doesn't diminish our learning, it just augments further learning!

[@DFish111]

It took me longer than it should have to figure out that a major pentatonic scale is basically a major scale with no tritones. That'll definitely have an impact on tensions/dissonances! Thanks for yet another great video. ✌🏻

[@Fretlessness]

It's a big ocean! Everyday we're just trying to build a bigger boat I remember when that light turnt on for me! It helps demystify a lot

[@fredblattner]

@@Fretlessness 19:19 19:19 19:19

[@KrystofDreamJourney]

IMHO you made in this video one of the best condensed explanations of the basic concept for Russell’s theory, and you also provided a complete historical context ! I will recommend this video to my music students. Well done 😊 BTW : can’t wait for the continuation…

[@AndrewJanusson]

Please don't confuse your music students with this nonsense

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

@@AndrewJanusson A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men!

[@MIsweetshadow]

Okay, this was an instant subscribe. I really hope that you will cover extensively how to use the LCCTO. To my knowledge, this would be the first time someone does that on KZbin. I saw you interview Ben Schwendener on another channel and I know you studied with him. Needless to say, that I really have high hope. I discovered the LCCTO in 2017 but it always felt as if I was missing something, hopefully you will at long last provide that missing part I've been searching for all that time. Can't wait to see what's coming :)

[@lefteyereport6354]

It's amazing what he's accomplished while also being an F1 driver

[@cattafish]

LOL . .Not dissimilar in appearance, yet the F1 driver would be the equivalent of a fast bebopper who sadly missed the vertical aspects of the theory. The musician theorist was more like an astronaut and F1 driver combined !

[@oleksiishekhovtsov1564]

Hell yeah! Always wanted to dive into Russell's theory but never got around to it, so I have huge hope's for this series!

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

We’re gonna have some fun!

[@user-vp1kk5of4l]

Great! Looking forward to next episode 🎉

[@jeremyarbitaljacoby7155]

Thank you! I had an essentially correct ( very elemental) understanding of the “Lydian” theory-but your in depth discussions have and are deepening the history and usages!

[@lukievan]

Fantastic work on this episode! Digging the vibe, and Russell’s theory was made easy to understand. Looking forward to more of this!

[@leonardlevy8811]

Thanks , I loved the idea that the Ionian major scale was basically a IV, V , I progression. Gave me a hint to finally understand what Russell was about . I'm curious how to apply his theories to. modal jazz and how/why the modal music that was supposedly so influenced by Russell is usually based on minor chords not Major.

[@Peter-sk5vg]

Thanks. The clarity of your lesson is revelatory

[@petegreenwood2793]

Super well explained, great presentational style - loved it!

[@ts8538]

This is great! Thanks!

[@dingoswamphead]

This is very clear and fascinating. Thanks Bob.

[@zacattacx5637]

I've read the book and I'm really looking forward towards your rendering of it. Keep it up!

[@jedtulman46]

I'm a George Russell o phile So armed w .my new piano I'm all in here!

[@Fretlessness]

This is a terrific video! I'll be watching everything from here.

[@jazzwoodshed7574]

Very good episode 1!!! Looking forward to more episodes. :)

[@tomalleeson4573]

Good, good, good. Thanks

[@jorgeleyton1474]

Fascinating... !

[@jamessidney2851]

Very nice. Thanks!

[@ernietollar407]

The Lydian Chromatic Concept - the infomercial

[@femi_progressoi8698]

Beautiful lesson

[@hugovandermeer1566]

Thanks for this man. Opened up a better understanding for me as a tenor sax player. Look forward to part two 🎶🎵🎷✝️

[@paulgibby6932]

Great stuff and presentation is very clear and well-developed. Eager to learn more. Thanks.

[@paulrodberg]

Very nice thank you for your teaching

[@Dave_Hepler]

Thank you!!!!

[@k.scotsparks9247]

...'very cool; thanks!

[@djmileski]

Great video

[@hugovandermeer1566]

Have had that book for twenty years still on page 5.

[@ChazJankel]

very useful knowledge thankyou

[@ianwebb9859]

Thank you

[@CatrinaDaimonLee]

my free blues lesson (taken down now) mentioned the blues scale as derived from the overtone series

[@thejazzguru]

Bobby, great job on this. Due to the naturally occurring overtone series, there becomes a spiritual aspect to this concept as well. Original intended design if you will. I discovered these tones as a trombonist. It bothered me for years as to why the note "E" {above a high Bb} sounded when simply ascending in 1st position. The overtone series is the answer. Any simple pipe or tube will produce the same results. Connecting with these sounds brings a sense of unity and stability not found in using the standard root position major scale. Plus, it just plain sounds really cool for improvisation and composition. Looking forward to the next installment

[@gargus6287]

fascinating lad this Russell guy. pretty quick on a race track too

[@mcrumph]

I really enjoyed this and I am looking forward to the upcoming episodes. I do have one technical question, though; could you please use an acoustic piano next time? The levels of your electric sounded quite low & somewhat muffled/muddy. I think the strings of the acoustic would help bring out the clarity & brightness of the theory. I have only been playing piano for 10 months & while I realize this is WAY above my current level, I will let it sink in & percolate. I'll get to it at the proper time in my process. Thanks again & I wish you well.

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

Thanks for the feedback, but I was actually concerned the keys were too high in the mix. The quality may depend on the device each person is listening on, and you might get a clearer sound using headphones or different speakers. I don't have an acoustic piano in the studio, but I'll try to make sure the Rhodes is mixed in a way that makes the principles clear.

[@zdogg8]

Tip: Video stars @ 7:49

[@mbmillermo]

Irving Berlin, one of the most successful songwriters of all time, composed everything in F♯ major using a transposing piano that allowed him to use a lever to change the pitch to any key (there is a KZbin video where he demonstrates this). Writing in F♯ means that the black keys form a major pentatonic scale, and one must go to the white keys for the leading tone (E♯) and the subdominant (B) (which together form the only tritone in the major scale).. The ♯4/♯11 in F♯ major is also a white key (B♯). I think that makes an interesting connection with the Russell "problem" of the white keys -- maybe Berlin got around it by focusing on the black keys and thereby focusing automatically on the first five tones of the cycle of fifths. There is no problem with the black keys.

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

I find the fact that Irving Berlin composed so many great songs on a transposing piano totally fascinating. Aside from that interesting and potentially inspirational tidbit, I don't see the Lydian Chromatic Concept as having anything to do with white keys and black keys, it's just about organization of tones. We could be talking about any key center on any instrument.

[@mbmillermo]

@@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic - didn't you make the video? In the video you talk about Russell 's fascination with the white keys of the piano and how he was obsessed with a problem he discovered in those white keys. Now, of course we could change the key center to any one of 12, because it's an equal-temperament system, and we'd have the same problem there. But if you think of it that way, then you miss the whole point of the white keys versus the black keys in Russell and Berlin's perspective.

[@mbmillermo]

I just fixed some errors in the text of my last reply. I had written it using dictation on my Android phone and I didn't notice that it had messed it up.

[@bebopreview3187]

I'm interested to see if you get the same amount of criticism from members of the LCC facebook page members as I did in my video series on this subject with one of them even threatening me with lawyers when I criticized their interpretation. They don't seem to have found you yet - there is no link on their page and I've been blocked so can't leave a comment. You look off to a good start to me though and I pretty much agree with everything so far. 👍

[@unknown6390]

Internet dorks are more scared than they are smart. Dont take it to heart that they act like that

[@martifingers]

You probably will cover this in future episodes but does temperament affect the theory at all?

[@MichaelBLive]

This is really great! Thanks! Have you seen Oliver Pren's NewJazz channel? His video THE MODES: A basic Introduction with a Crazy Continuation... is really great. I believe it is relevant to this discussion. I am a relative beginner in comparison to Oliver applying the concept to guitar. Cool, Michael B

[@paulmullins4676]

Bobby, I started playing trumpet about a year ago @ age 72. Now I have joined our Communiversity orchestra to play concerts with members who are university faculty and some high school band teachers. What they seem to do so well is read music perfectly and get the rhythm immediately. What can be done to learn this faster?

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

Hi Paul, I'm not sure you're gonna love my answer to your question, but as far as I can tell you've just got to do a lot of reading. Your best bet is to get a collection of pieces you can play, perhaps the "Art of Phrasing" chapter from the Arban's book, the Concone Lyrical Studies book, or any book of etudes, and practice sight-reading them using a metronome on a tempo that's just fast enough to keep you on your toes, but not so fast as to make the challenge impossible. Try to read just a little ahead of where you're playing, and practice reading through a piece without stopping until you get to the end for the practice. Then, review any tricky rhythms you run into. Over time you will start to hear the rhythms and melodies in your head before you play them. It's much the same as learning to read language, in which you start off sounding out complicated words until you intuitively know the meaning of combinations of letters. As somebody who mostly learned music by ear until grad school, sight-reading hasn't always come easy to me, but despite my efforts to come up with some effective methods and short-cuts, the only way I got better at it was to do a lot of reading. Good luck!

[@paulmullins4676]

@@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic Bobby thank you for your reply. It shows you really care. My teacher sings every piece but my singing voice has been pretty bad all my life so that comes with difficulty.

[@arjenland4374]

Nice! 2 questions (i'm soo impatient): could you not also see the lydian scale as composed of 2 groups of notes: one resolving to C and the other to G other? Your explanation of stacked fifths, C G D A E B F# Is a little puzzeling. G is the first overtone of C (when leaving out the octave C), the first overtone of this G overtone is D etc. Very nice theoretically, but what about the pretty clearly audible Bb overtone when hitting a C? The blues baby wants attention... but yesyes the F# is also a baby. I love babies...

[@arjenland4374]

And also funny that there's always an E in the (lower part of) overtone series of the C, even if one plays an Cminorchord. The dissonance between E and Eb adds to the flavour of the minor stew?

[@markyachnin1901]

I'm eager for the next video about this. Thank you!

[@rillloudmother]

it took me so long to be able hear that F as dissonant.

[@monsterjazzlicks]

I got part of the way through it, but was confused because there were seemingly multiple answers to some of the questions?

[@williamscottbauer1826]

Copies of the LCCTO are really expensive - any sources for reasonably price copy?

[@FablesOfFaubus]

I always thought it was “tonal GRAVITY” did I have a different copy of this?!

[@cattafish]

I hope this will be the definitive exposition of the Concept. Yet the final edition of the book doesn't encapsulate all that the Concept covers. The vertical ,scalar Implications of the chord went much further in the earlier editions and the horizontal, linear aspect was also dealt with. Sadly it would have taken at least six books to compete a thorough grounding in the LCC at this rate. That would have included the pan rhythmic world it opened up. Which IMO is at least as Important to its understanding. Caught between being bandleader, composer and an academic,under pressure from his detractors, the final edition of the spends too much of its time trying to justify itself as an after-the- event analytical device with historical examples IMO.

[@AnonosaurusRex1]

9:00

[@jonasaras]

Russell’s fundamental problem was being constrained by key centers/circle of fifths, which is why he couldn’t get beyond the second octave. Lyle Spud Murphy used the overtone series as the basis of his theory. He used it both vertically AND horizontally. Ultimately, it is possible to voice-lead 12-note structures (no duplication of parts) none of which contain dissonance.

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

I don't understand what you mean when you say Russell couldn't get beyond the second octave.

[@jonasaras]

@@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic The harmonic structures don’t go beyond the 13th

[@m.vonhollen6673]

@@jonasarasSo when you stack thirds, it goes 1-3-5-7-9-11-13 and then ends? After that you’d just be using a note that’s already been used?

[@jonasaras]

@@m.vonhollen6673 That’s only true if you’re using a 7-note scale. There are other ways to stack thirds and continue beyond that. Charlie Banocos had some ideas, that took it to 12 notes, but it didn’t conform to the overtone series, which made it erroneous IMO. It can be done without dissonance.

[@loulasher]

Are Murphy's or Banocos' ideas fleshed out in any books (or I guess videos)?

[@wprtube]

Not sure why you went from 'here's the overtone series' to 'let's build up from C in 5ths' (12:04). I don't see the connection.

[@fragslap5229]

Never even HEARD of George Russell and after listening to this can't say I regret it.

[@unknown6390]

Why

[@zdogg8]

If making one's point, emphatically, was based on rocking back and forth while waving a bood on camera, you are the GOAT. Sadly, it is not.

[@alicehb1606]

Ugh Mr Russell’s class at NEC was sheer torture. Great musician but not a great teacher. Hated every minute of it, the most confusing book and music theory class ever. Book was bound with a cheap red binder and we had to pay 50 bucks for it, this is the late 80s! But had to click on this as I was so shocked to see this book in my KZbin feed.

[@FloydFreud]

Interesting video, but either you need you be louder, or the musical interludes taken down a notch.

[@claesvanoldenphatt9972]

12TET doesn’t let you play perfectly in tune in any key. They all sound pretty much as out-of tune because the harmonic series doesn’t yield a circle of 5ths but a spiral. Jazzbeaux really ought to get over their obsessions with pianos, go to vocal or horn music or synths that don’t play in 12TET. This Russel concept is based entirely on a misunderstanding of pitch. There is nothing objectively disjunct about the major scale. It’s merely a neurotic obsession.

[@mer1red]

This book is a disaster. It is very sad that this major toxic influence on jazz (improvisation) still lives today. Music is not mathematics, there is no (proof of) right or wrong. So it is easy to say that any criticism on that theory comes from not understanding it. It arose around the same period that classical music was evolving away from tonality towards a meaningless music based on intellectual gymnastics. I could make a video series that clearly explains why the flaws in the lydian chromatic concept result in an aesthetically inferior music. Just one advice for beginners: don't use this as the foundation for you improvisation, you waste your time on it. Even Miles Davis eventually turned his back on it and went in a different direction.

[@hugovandermeer1566]

That's another perspective, and as valid as any other.

[@unknown6390]

😂

[@normanspurgeon5324]

There is no counter point, or resolution explained. It's all about playing notes "against" a chord. Shoenberg called these vagrant tones- they wander with no desination.

[@AndrewJanusson]

Isn't this "concept" well known as pseudo-intellectualism? Kind of like Ornette Coleman's "Harmelodics" nonsense?

[@jonasaras]

That’s precisely what it is

[@NadavHbr]

I too label what I don’t understand as nonsense.

[@AndrewJanusson]

@@NadavHbr lmao ok buddy 👍

[@RidgewoodSchoolofMusic]

How would you define "pseudo-intellectualism" in opposition to legitimate intellectual pursuit? Obviously "a bunch of people don't like it" isn't a viable argument against a novel paradigm or explanatory model, or we could dismiss practically every revolution in science or philosophical thought through history from the outset. Even though I think systems of music theory fall largely outside the strict purview of science, the way I distinguish between valid explanatory systems and the broad umbrella of "pseudo-science" is to use Karl Popper's standard of logical falsifiability. I think the principles of the Lydian Chromatic Concept are logically falsifiable, so I regard it as a valid system. From there, there is a legitimate question as to whether those principles are true or practically useful, but addressing that question requires an understanding of the actual principles of the concept. Most people don't really know anything about this stuff, so one of my goals in producing this series is provide people with enough knowledge so that they are able to make interesting arguments against the principles of the theory rather than dismissing it wholesale out of ignorance. I'll address all of this in greater detail in episode 2.

[@user-ks3ol3lw3b]

Gunther Schuller hired George to teach that nonsense at the New England Conservatory when he was first made President of the school.

[@mikegeld1280]

How bout u start explaining the LCC ,and stop with the history lesson, I'm out 🥱

[@EricMLopez]

Miss you already

[@mikegeld1280]

@@EricMLopez ok I gotta say ,I came back later to see what else you talked about, I see u finally got to the sht,I've been trying to get my head around this whole LCC thing, the second half of ur video isnt bad,,,I did have to watch several these to "fully " understand this thing ,very interesting ,I'm heading down a rabbit hole,cheers 👍

[@EricMLopez]

@@mikegeld1280 I didn't make the video, but am nonethless glad to hear you came back to it!

[@unknown6390]

Admitting to everyone you lack an attention span and awareness of the seeking feature

[@mikegeld1280]

@@unknown6390 admitting ur really not so good with people or public critique, 😏