It's been a while since this post, but as I just got the 2008 edition of Russell's book and started into it (after having
studied one of the earlier versions from the 1960s (I think), I have a few observations to offer. First, if you go to
the piano you will see that the modes Russell references are the white keys. If you take a piece of music paper
and starting at note F in the treble clef and begin adding pitches on the spaces above until you have
put in six pitches above F what you have is the lydian mode as a vertical structure (chord, if you will). This chord
"stack" going up to the high D in semitones is 4-3-4-3-4-3. Very symmetrical and consonant. If you add the top
F you have another 3 and two superimposed chords: G7 over Fmaj7. Compare this with the chords you get when
you begin the stack on note C and add pitches on the lines above it. What Russell seems to be saying -- and in the
2008 edition of his "tome" there is so much nomenclature (especially in Chapter 3) that it is really hard to get at the
core concept -- is that the Lydian mode should be the major mode of the scale system. From that he extracts various
"rules" (or methodological 'tools') for identifying the "proper" prevailing lydian or altered lydian scale (so there are major,
minor, blues, augmented, etc.) appropriate to chords that you would find in a piece of music. If it is only a melody, there
are ways to analyze it to find the lydian aspects.

His pitch is that his method is THE way to build improvisations and compositions.

That's what I've gotten out of his book. It is not one I would recommend for a number of reasons, excepting if you
are engaged in academic scholarship of some kind involving music theories of the 20th century that had some
currency among jazz musicians (and some composers). To my way of thinking, the existence of the musical pitch
relations underlying Western music are cultural conventions that evolved with the history of European music, leading
to the utterly compromised equal temperament of the piano--to which all of the other instruments MUST conform.
If one spends some time listening to the music of India, Indonesia, Japan, Africa, China, etc., you will begin to hear
pitches in between the ones that have been bred into our Western ears.

So, a "system" that tells the user to buy into this one way of tuning and place the emphasis on a particular major mode
that exists within that tuning system because of that tuning system is a heavy buy-in. The same goes for 12-tone
composition.

There are, I think "systems" that warrant a look and some thought. A book worth puzzling over (and over) is Harry
Partch's Genesis of a Music. He created a 43-tone scale and the instrumentation to perform within it--against incredible
odds. Another book worth looking through is the Schillinger System of Musical Composition. Both were systematizers
of a very different sort. One can use the information in these books to begin to explore a very wide range of tonal
material. Both authors carefully explain what they are about (tho' Schillinger uses more jargon than Partch, he is still pretty
comprehensible) and provide the basis for further exploration of musical possibilities for composing and improvising.

That's my 2 cents on the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. If you have to study it, do so; else, if you
are exploring, go after other folks (and there are plenty more) that I mentioned. But, more important--keep playing
and listening (and listening and listening and reading scores when you listen) -- and composing your own music in a
written form that other players can us to perform.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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