lydianchromaticconcept.com

I´m following this concept and the forum, I practice in several tunes with this concept, for me it´s really amazing, after 15 years it´s a new beggining to me, but I feel that a lot of people have a critic attitude. Why? What are the arguments that lead your reclaim? It´s only their refuse to change the point of view?

On the previous LCC forum I posted several examples, from the Net, of some of the confusion about the Concept. Most of the time it seems that people grossly oversimplify it in their minds. This ignorance probably relates to the fact that there is so much chord/scale information available these days so there is tendency to say’Oh, that’s really just a blah-blah scale.’
Even if one didn’t want to really get involved with the Concept on deeper level, the student of jazz should at least respectfully check it out for it’s (and George Russell’s) historical significance.
When the next volume about Horizontal Tonal Gravity comes out I think it will be even more apparent that the LCC is a visionary piece of work.

I hope this new volume brings a more recognition to Russell´s work who points the basis for the understanding of modern harmony, not only for jazz players.

For me the concept is a wonderful tool, but maybe it's the general backlash against the subsequent dominance of the chord scale approach throughout jazz education that has something to do with attitudes towards it today.

These approaches are somewhat watered down derivations of the original ideas of the book and are based on common practice.

Because of this 'trickle down' or 'Chinese whisper' effect, so many chord scale books today offer inside and outside scale possibilities for each chord in a modal or tonal context and have done so for many years now. Every Aebersold Play Along volume is always accompanied by a scale syllabus with graded options.

This has led many from a jazz background to believe they already have a puchase on the most important implications of the theory for improvisation in advance.

But what you don't generally have is the idea of the Lydian key centre as the fundamental basis of it all or any grasp or the chromatic scale as a graded order of intervallic possibilities in relation to a tonic. Also there may be a rudimentary grasp of linear versus vertical approaches to soloing but very little grasp of the larger implications of the linear model and still less any notion about how to combine the two.

The biggest disappointment for me is the realtively slow uptake of the compositional possibilites the concept has provided, but some of that has to be the fault of the scant presentation they have received up till now. Again the problem is also very much that parallel concepts of polytonal, polyrhythmic composition derived from modern classical practice have been around for at least as long if not longer and have somewhat stolen the thunder of the concept in this regrard.


With the new edition of volume one covering less of the overall ground than the original version once did, the tendency towards underestimating the concept's potential will still be stronger than ever. This is the only danger I see in the current somewhat piecemeal presentation of the ideas.

This will only be rectified by the appearance of a second and (who knows), perhaps third volume. So here's hoping it won't be a long time before we see it.!

But what you don't generally have is the idea of the Lydian key centre as the fundamental basis of it all or any grasp or the chromatic scale as a graded order of intervallic possibilities in relation to a tonic.

Yes, I agree with this.

I would add to this list: Without the "lowest common denominator" of the Lydian Tonic, you don't get the sense of sharp or flat lying tonal areas nearly as clearly.

Also there may be a rudimentary grasp of linear versus vertical approaches to soloing but very little grasp of the larger implications of the linear model and still less any notion about how to combine the two.

I put myself into this category. I certainly understand and can use these two basic ideas, but I have not found a way to expand on these ideas - especially the horizontal - in a very coherent way.

The only thing I found interesting to do that springs from the general idea of the horizontal melody is to compose a melody (or countermelody) based on an interesting horizontal scale, and then reharmonize those interesting notes in a vertical manner to create a non-standard chord progression that leads to my end chord or tonic station (am I using the term tonic station correctly? I think so...).

Would anyone else be willing to share ideas on this topic?