New perspective on LCCOTO.

[Fer Carranza]

Hi people: I wonder if some of you are in The Lydian Chromatic Concept group on FB??? If do you don´t know it, I really encourage you to join it. I recently discover a new insight, almost for me, of use of this Concept. It´s stated by Joe Giardullo, great soprano sax player and devoted user of the concept. He stated there that the main core of the Russell work is based in the "Tonal Gravity Chart of A Lydian Chromatic Scale" that comes with an early edition of the book, I don´t remember now what edition is. The fact is that, I have the Chart, and it shows all of intervals possibles given a Lydian Tonic, to the more consonant for the less ones. Joe is in favor of an intervallic use of the concept and not in a scale use of it, because one can displays an ilimitated number of possibilities to achieve the twelve tones scale but in a gravitational order given by the chart. He don´t pay attention to the chords in the tunes, but he does it to the tonic (or tonics) of the composition, and since this place he became to play with intervals in a personal order to achieve your individual musical languague. What do you think about it?


PD: Here is the link where he explains better than I your point of view.....http://sopranoplanet.com/2017/04/20/lyd ... ation-way/

[chespernevins]

Hi Fer,

Yes, good stuff. This is what Motherlode always talked about and we had many discussions on these boards about it.

FYI, the chart posted by Joe is from the old book and therefore follows the "old" order of Tonal Gravity. The new book has a revised order of Tonal Gravity, however there is not a new chart of Tonal Gravity (intervals) in the new book. Somewhere on this forum I had made up this chart relating to the new order and had posted it.

Thanks for posting!

[Fer Carranza]

Thanks Chesper!!!! I will check where do you posted this new organization of the chart. I feel that this "interpretation" is very interesting, but I feel more comfortable with scales, since I can´t figure the real application of this other point of view in the regular practice over a tune or any kind of musical material, is like proof and error, something more vague or with ambiguity, but with the interesting fact that this opens to new doors in the use of the Concept. IMHO.
Fernando

[Anatole]

hello,

yes it is!

so what difference really is there between scales and the tonal gravity chart ? none perhaps.
as a consequence, is not a scale only a set of intervals taken from the tonal gravity chart ?

I wonder why that the chart of 144 intervals should appear in volume 2, there is a footnote somewhere in vol1 that says it so, the tonal gravity chart not only deal with vertical gravity but there is something horizontal to it also (like the scales BTW).

intervals in the tonal gravity chart that can be both active/horizontal and passive/vertical ( do the intervals confirms the lydian tonic of the moment ? or are they creating another lydian tonic which might be responsible for an event/change in sound), depending on conditions (place in time, voicing etc.),
melodically there is something very interesting about those intervals.

to quote (see facebook user named) The Chromatic Octave: Directional Intervals Concept
12 October 2015 ·

The Chromatic Concept is an intervallic concept which can be used to track the tonal centers in melody and harmony that are intervallically, harmonically, and directionally activated. The concept takes a microscopic look at how the inherent tonal magnetism between different frequencies generates a series of tonal centers. ..

@CN, in your precedent post you were saying melody, bass, chords and voice leadings intersect/superimpose vertically and horizontally (resolving tendencies). I quite don't get why are we often looking at the lydian tonics for the chords (or groups of chords) rather than looking at the successive intervals in melodies (regardless of the chords) that build (or weaken) potential lydian tonics (in time - regardless of the bar lines but more about the placement in time, dynamics, duration of notes/intervals in the melodies) ? (do you use the term "navigation" in this concept of going melodically from one lydian tonic to another ?)

that way you get some idea of the lydian tonics in the melody to put next to the chords analysis lydian tonics,
perhaps at that point looking at the distance between lydian tonics (resolving tendencies) both between the melody movement and also over the chord progression yield some more interesting info about the sound.
anyway, I can only raise more questions.

so shout-out to Motherlode for putting all this into music and everyone who wants to help with the understanding of the concept.
so really cool stuffs @sopranoplanet.com

[chespernevins]

@CN, in your precedent post you were saying melody, bass, chords and voice leadings intersect/superimpose vertically and horizontally (resolving tendencies). I quite don't get why are we often looking at the lydian tonics for the chords (or groups of chords) rather than looking at the successive intervals in melodies (regardless of the chords) that build (or weaken) potential lydian tonics (in time - regardless of the bar lines but more about the placement in time, dynamics, duration of notes/intervals in the melodies) ? (do you use the term "navigation" in this concept of going melodically from one lydian tonic to another ?)

that way you get some idea of the lydian tonics in the melody to put next to the chords analysis lydian tonics,
perhaps at that point looking at the distance between lydian tonics (resolving tendencies) both between the melody movement and also over the chord progression yield some more interesting info about the sound.
anyway, I can only raise more questions.

Hi Anatole,

All good questions. We would probably have to look at a specific piece of music to really discuss this, as it's pretty unmanageable in the abstract. In a standard tune, there may not be enough notes in the melody of a given time segment to determine much about an exact lydian tonic, or at least not one strong enough to counteract a strong harmonic content at any given time.

[chespernevins]

One interesting thing about tonal gravity intervals and scales.

In the key of Db Lydian, Ab is the second strongest note there is. Therefore, you would think that Ab should always be a very consonant note in any given Db Lydian context.

However, if we play an Eb7+11 chord and play an Ab over it, it doesn't sound consonant at all.

One to handle this might be to see Tonal Gravity as I think that Motherlode did (and how it was presented in the old book), which is to allow the intervals of the chromatic scale to be grouped by parent scale.

Another way might be to consider that only the root of the chord and the LT define a chord and anything else is just color. Therefore, the Ab would dictate that we are no longer playing an Eb7+11.

Another way would be to put melodic considerations before any set harmony.

Thoughts?

[Fer Carranza]

FYI, the chart posted by Joe is from the old book and therefore follows the "old" order of Tonal Gravity. The new book has a revised order of Tonal Gravity, however there is not a new chart of Tonal Gravity (intervals) in the new book. Somewhere on this forum I had made up this chart relating to the new order and had posted it.

Thanks for posting!

Do you can post this actualized chart again, I can´t find it......thanks Chesper!!!!
I think that Joe´s point (I´m very certain about this) is that he doesn´t see chords but tonic or tonal center and from here he starts to interact with the interval chart. I.E. in a chord changes tune (I got Rythmn perhaps the most known) one can point all the changes and if we play over the progression until the middle chorus one can hear that all occurs under Bb tonic (yes, very differents Bb scales, but the tonic remains there) and this kind of tunes can give us the freedom to do the practice with the chart. Just an example to work on, I do it and it´s very interesting, because anybody can feel free from this vertiginous display of chords at the beguinning and in the end of the tune.

[Tom R]

One interesting thing about tonal gravity intervals and scales.

In the key of Db Lydian, Ab is the second strongest note there is. Therefore, you would think that Ab should always be a very consonant note in any given Db Lydian context.

However, if we play an Eb7+11 chord and play an Ab over it, it doesn't sound consonant at all.

One to handle this might be to see Tonal Gravity as I think that Motherlode did (and how it was presented in the old book), which is to allow the intervals of the chromatic scale to be grouped by parent scale.

Another way might be to consider that only the root of the chord and the LT define a chord and anything else is just color. Therefore, the Ab would dictate that we are no longer playing an Eb7+11.

Another way would be to put melodic considerations before any set harmony.

Thoughts?

Hi there

Back when the AAJ forum was still active, there was some analysis by motherlode of a tune by another contributor. If I recall correctly the tune presented a similar scenario, and even though the chord didn't contain the note in question, he regarded it as still consonant (indeed, characteristic) as it came from an "earlier" tonal order. I think he did rely on the separation of melody and harmony for that assertion.

Your post got me musing about some first principles (and I say this with the benefit of reading the pre-4th edition and the posts on this forum). It is strange to those of us versed in the traditional ways of thinking about good / bad notes to think of the P5 from Db as consonant to all chords built in Db Lydian, like Eb7. The real picture is obviously more complicated.

Tom

[Fer Carranza]

@CN, in your precedent post you were saying melody, bass, chords and voice leadings intersect/superimpose vertically and horizontally (resolving tendencies). I quite don't get why are we often looking at the lydian tonics for the chords (or groups of chords) rather than looking at the successive intervals in melodies (regardless of the chords) that build (or weaken) potential lydian tonics (in time - regardless of the bar lines but more about the placement in time, dynamics, duration of notes/intervals in the melodies) ? (do you use the term "navigation" in this concept of going melodically from one lydian tonic to another ?)

that way you get some idea of the lydian tonics in the melody to put next to the chords analysis lydian tonics,
perhaps at that point looking at the distance between lydian tonics (resolving tendencies) both between the melody movement and also over the chord progression yield some more interesting info about the sound.
anyway, I can only raise more questions.

Hi Anatole,

All good questions. We would probably have to look at a specific piece of music to really discuss this, as it's pretty unmanageable in the abstract. In a standard tune, there may not be enough notes in the melody of a given time segment to determine much about an exact lydian tonic, or at least not one strong enough to counteract a strong harmonic content at any given time.

Hi people, I´m back from a long time retirement of the forum, and after a time working on the interval chart I can put a challenge in a tune with more tonal centers, like "Giant Steps". If do you look at the harmony it´s a rollacoaster of tonics, but in the melody it beguins on B and ends with a turnaround to B again. So, I focus on this raw data and I search at the chart of intervals in B tonic chromatic scale and I can discover the melody of the tune in the first bar placed in the 7th. order, second bar in the 5th. order, third bar in the 5th. order too, fourth bar in the 9th. order. In the second line, first bar is a 6th. order, second bar 4th. order, third bar 2nd. order, and fourth bar 6th. order. In the third line first bar 6th. order, second bar 9th. order, third bar 9th. order, fourth bar 3rd. tone order. In the last line, first bar is a 2nd. tone order, the second bar a 6th. tone order followed by a 6th. tone order, the third bar it´s a 6th. tone order again, and the last bar of the tune it´s a 2nd. tone order. After all of this we can see that the most outgoing interval is a 9th. tone order out of the tonic, all of these intervals are in the consonant nucleus of B, so, the freedom to work on this "so desafiant" tune is incredible!!!! It´s simplifies everything. I worked with this approach and it´s amazing.