Tonal Gravity & Interval Tonics

The main body of the LCC and its practical application, including all 4 published versions of Book 1 with their inserts: the 1959 tan cover; the 1959 light green cover Japanese edition; the 1970‘s white cover, which adds an illustrated River Trip to the 1959 edition, and the currently available Fourth Edition, 2001.

The authorization code is the first word on Page 198 of the Fourth Edition of the LCCTO.

Moderators: bobappleton, sandywilliams

Forum rules
An open letter from Alice Russell. June 21, 2011, Brookline, Massachusetts. 1. DO NOT make insulting, mean spirited remarks about anyone or their work; there are a plethora of sites where you can rant unfettered. If you attack someone personally, your comments will be removed. You can post it, but I'm not paying for it. Go elsewhere, and let those artists who are actually interested in discussion and learning have the floor. 2. There will be NO posting of or links to copyrighted material without permission of the copyright owner. That's the law. And if you respect the work of people who make meaningful contributions, you should have no problem following this policy. 3. I appreciate many of the postings from so many of you. Please don't feel you have to spend your time "defending" the LCC to those who come here with the express purpose of disproving it. George worked for decades to disprove it himself; if you know his music, there's no question that it has gravity. And a final word: George was famous for his refusal to lower his standards in all areas of his life, no matter the cost. He twice refused concerts of his music at Lincoln Center Jazz because of their early position on what was authentically jazz. So save any speculation about the level of him as an artist and a man. The quotes on our websites were not written by George; they were written by critics/writers/scholars/fans over many years. Sincerely, Alice
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Bob
Posts: 231
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:11 am

Post by Bob »

The name of the concept is George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization", which suggests that GR is NOT attempting to invent a new system but to organize the existing tonal system from the point of view of the lydian mode....Use this logic and see if you can reconstruct "Tonal Gravity"
See Godel's Theorum
Now, why is the TOP note the tonic of the min 2nd? Because the TOP note is a "prime" note of that interval !!
Modus Ponens?
Simple?
Hardly. (E.g., see Craft of Musical Composition, Book 1, (Fourth Edition) Theoretical Part. Schott:New York.)
Bob
Posts: 231
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:11 am

Post by Bob »

Here is further clarification of my previouw response (ref: The Nexnor Project:

Fallacy: Begging the Question

Also Known as: Circular Reasoning, Reasoning in a Circle, Petitio Principii.

Description of Begging the Question

Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.

Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).
Claim C (the conclusion) is true.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."

Some cases of question begging are fairly blatant, while others can be extremely subtle.

Examples of Begging the Question

Bill: "God must exist."
Jill: "How do you know."
Bill: "Because the Bible says so."
Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?"
Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."
"If such actions were not illegal, then they would not be prohibited by the law."
"The belief in God is universal. After all, everyone believes in God."
Interviewer: "Your resume looks impressive but I need another reference."
Bill: "Jill can give me a good reference."
Interviewer: "Good. But how do I know that Jill is trustworthy?"
Bill: "Certainly. I can vouch for her."
sandywilliams
Posts: 201
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:17 pm

Post by sandywilliams »

I love Escher and Bach but never got into Godel…my loss( my small brain!). You are saying that you’d like more empirical proof of the existence of Tonal Gravity? We are trying, so be patient. It helps to sit at a piano and play the intervals and listen.
Bob
Posts: 231
Joined: Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:11 am

Post by Bob »

No, I've long been convinced of tonal gravity as a force of nature. (See latest post to the original topic). like Gravity (as studied by physicists) a detail or two is fuzzy. To my ear, GR, PH, RM, HS, AF sll survive the piano test. My question was regarding the root of the minor triad, not a challenge to tonal gravity. I am in total ageement with Cole Porter:
How strange the change from major to minor.
dogbite
Posts: 82
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:13 pm

Post by dogbite »

i believe that the definitions of both 1) modal tonic and 2) lydian tonic may be helpful in sorting all this out. i suspect that hindemith was hearing the lower tone of the minor third as a "modal tonic" and that russell is referring to the upper tone as a "lydian tonic".

i agree with bob that circular reasoning should be avoided here. i have studied the hindemith text in question at length and it is clear to me that he was troubled greatly regarding the lack of justification for the minor triad provided by the overtone series itself; and i hope that the participants of the forum may put their collective heads together in a state of "unity" (russell's term) to resolve this and other issues.

the minor triad and tonalities are obviously such a large part of the vocabulary of western music that they musn't be dismissed as an afterthought of part-writing or some other random phenomena.

i really want to explore what i stated in the first paragraph, that the concepts of modal tonic, lydian tonic, and therefore lydian tonic interval, will be "key" in resolving this dilemma...

dogbite

"woof"
sandywilliams
Posts: 201
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:17 pm

Post by sandywilliams »

Thoughts about interval tonics and minor chords:
The new edition doesn’t have the elaborate interval chart contained in the 1959 edition. There is no mention of primes in the new edition. Now, these are simply called ‘tonic tones’ (p.7) or the ‘Lydian Tonic’.
The fifth is what GR calls the “cornerstone intervalâ€
sandywilliams
Posts: 201
Joined: Tue Sep 05, 2006 9:17 pm

Post by sandywilliams »

BTW I remember one of the coolest things at the ten day LCC seminar I attended, back in 1988, was when GR demonstrated the modal genres by superimposing a tertian order F lydian scale(FACEGBD) over octave G’s, D’s, B’s, A’s, C’s, and E’s. Listen to each chord for 15-20 seconds.
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