about G. Russel , “Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization”

...it was being discussed here

https://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/798-armonia-e-composizione-modale-il-concetto-lydio-cromatico-della-organizzazione-tonale

At the moment I haven't found an Italian translation, try asking Modale.

In Italian it may help

http://www.gatm.it/analiticaojs/index.php/analitica/article/view/161/138

sorry... I don't know if I'm seeing things... but does it also appear to you that the text by Russell, on Amazon, costs the beauty of about 320 precious euros?

At the moment they only have it through external libraries... yes, that is the price, I don't know if in Italy it is out of print, difficult to find or something else.

...do you mean the English version? (which if I'm not mistaken is the only one existing)

yes, frank, i am talking specifically about the English version.

let's be clear... online, tinkering around a bit, the pirated pdf file can be found.

i would prefer to have the book... but, damn, the price seems really too exaggerated to me!

P.S. in the meantime my English has evolved slightly and I can understand a little more; and maybe, having the russell would have been a good opportunity to scrape it even further!

P.P.S. returning for a moment to russell's text... is it made up of multiple volumes or is it a single text?

I have the PDF somewhere but I don't remember, I seem to recall it was a single volume

But Google....???

https://luckybooks.online/book/4fa85b8ade330920d22d

have you noticed that on the cover (but also on one of the visible internal pages) the wording "vol. one" and "book 1" is reported? this presupposes the existence of a book 2 or vol. 2 or vol. X and book X as well?

I confirm that the text says volume 1, it is the only one I know. I am attaching some reviews ;)

Look for Stefano Scippa's thesis in Italian that treats the subject with dignity

In fact, there is no mention of a second volume, given this article by Stefano Zenni: “Storia del jazz. Una prospettiva globale” (Viterbo, Nuovi Equilibri, Viterbo, 2012, pp. 400 ff.)

One of the deepest transformations of language that occurred during the 1950s revolves around a figure long ignored by jazz histories: George Russell (1923-2009), the greatest theorist jazz has ever produced and one of the great intellectuals and composers of American music. Having escaped tuberculosis, which did not spare his contemporary Fats Navarro, Russell developed, during his long convalescence, a theoretical system influenced by his studies with Stefan Wolpe. From this, he derived a volume, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, which in the early 1950s circulated among musicians in private editions and later saw various editions. The 1959 edition, in subsequent periods, achieved a certain spread. In reality, before the expanded 2004 edition, the book — surrounded by a legendary aura — never went beyond an initiatory circle. Despite his marginal position, George Russell succeeded in founding a new theory that, through a series of complex historical stages, changed the course of music.

In jazz, there was no formalized procedure for studying improvisation or composition. Aside from Gene Krupa's famous method for drummers, books intended for teaching, such as the one compiled by Teddy Wilson for pianists, were generally based on direct example, with transcriptions to be assimilated and emulated. All professional jazz musicians studied instrumental technique formally, but the knowledge, rules, and tricks of improvisation were learned in the field: they imitated musicians chosen as models, improvised over records, and faced more experienced improvisers in jam sessions. Everyone knew the rules of harmony, but the peculiarities of jazz were learned through improvisational practice. It was obvious that composers, as well as pianists or soloists who also played the piano (Bix Beiderbecke, Coleman Hawkins, or Dizzy Gillespie), had a superior awareness of it. From the mid-1930s, the habit of labeling chords with letter and number symbols, similar to those used in Baroque music, spread, from which soloists derived the possible notes with which to improvise. But there was no reference theoretical lexicon, and the only formalized scales were major and minor, modified and enriched during improvisational practice. In fact, jazz musicians worked on the basis of an implicit theory, whose rules were well known but unstated, except occasionally and in a non-systematic way. Russell's work transformed this widespread practice into explicit theory; it was practically a fundamental systematization of lexicon and rules, thus laying the foundations for all jazz pedagogy.

The complex articulation of the Lydian Chromatic Concept can be summarized here in only a few words. Russell recognizes that improvisation is based on a series of scales that adhere to basic chords according to various degrees of consonance; above all, the lydian scale, considered the most consonant by virtue of the augmented fourth present in natural harmonics. The system then accepts scales such as the whole-tone and the octatonic (or diminished, as it is said in jazz). The latter had long been in use in contemporary music (Stravinsky, Debussy, Messiaen), but in jazz, only occasional traces are found from late Swing. Of these scales, to which Russell attributes a singular nomenclature, their intervallic nature and their relationship with chords are studied, which in turn are inserted into a system that evaluates their harmonic "gravity." In other words, a harmonic progression can be analyzed in two ways: as a series of tonal centers connected by secondary chords, or as a set of secondary chords rotating around a single, general tonal center. In this way, Russell offers the improviser a method to harmonically deepen basic chords or, conversely, to break free from them.

Throughout the book, the distinction is also introduced, which later became common usage, between vertical and horizontal improvisation: the former is typical of the style of Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane, who consider every chord a gravitational center to be explored; the latter characterizes the style of Lester Young and Ornette Coleman, who improvise melodies referring to a few tonal centers while ignoring intermediate chords. Since the early 1950s, Russell invited the musician to also choose these tonal centers "according to one's own aesthetic judgment," thus acting with total freedom, even to the point of ignoring harmonies and thinking in purely chromatic terms (hence the term chromatic in the title of the treatise). However, it is a reasoned chromaticism, because through the scheme"

regarding interval gravities, evidently indebted to Hindemith, the composer or improviser can grade weights, consonances and dissonances of every interval relative to an imaginary tonic. A way of proceeding that anticipates on paper what Ornette Coleman will later realize through a personal and naive approach. The flexibility of the method allows Russell to engage also in composition, counterpoint and even in the analysis of other musical genres (the 1959 edition focuses on the opening bars of Alban Berg's Violin Concerto).

At first, Russell only had the opportunity to apply his ideas occasionally. We find traces of this in Cubano Be Cubano Bop with Gillespie, A Bird in Igor's Yard by Buddy De Franco and the lesser-known Similau for Artie Shaw. In the early fifties, Russell, who was working as a clerk, is invited by musician friends to present some of his pieces for their recording sessions. The 1951 session in the name of Lee Konitz – with Miles Davis among the invited instrumentalists – documents his first masterpiece, Ezz-Thetic, a surprising masking of Love for Sale that proceeds at high speed through bop lines, crooked leaps and dissonant sobs. It is an anomalous phrasing, from which Eric Dolphy's improvisational style later descends; Dolphy would become a student and collaborator of Russell years later. The publication in 1953 of the Lydian Chromatic Concept attracts the attention of the jazz world: in reading and studying it, besides Konitz and Davis, are Art Farmer, the remarkable and underrated alto saxophonist Hal McKusick, drummer Paul Motian, and then Sonny Rollins (who recorded a version of Ezz-Thetic with Max Roach) and even more John Coltrane, who in 1957 was called by Russell for the concept album NEW YORK, NY.

Look for Stefano Scippa's thesis in Italian which treats the subject with dignity

http://docplayer.it/13937680-Gravita-tonale-e-lydian-chromatic-concept.html

... and anyway, my ignorance, it seems there is a volume 2

https://books.google.it/books/about/George_Russell_s_Lydian_Chromatic_Concep.html?id=ejqbpwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

JazzMania wrote:

Look for Stefano Scippa's thesis in Italian, which treats the subject with dignity

I will read ... of course that wiki in the bibliography

sifting through libraries and the web on the subject of this post, I found the work of Ron Miller:

http://www.traccedijazz.it/index.php/biblioteca/2321-ron-miller-modal-jazz-composition-harmony-edizione-italiana

do you know it? what do you think? does it actually deal with the same musical subject matter?

is there a recent version translated into Italian (but it seems only for volume 1; for the translation of volume 2, I believe they want to see how sales go with vol. 1)

Compliments to the description made by Jamsession regarding G. Russell's text. I take the liberty of offering a few of my own opinions on the matter.

First of all, I must say with regret that Russell's concepts have been wrongly confined to Jazz music; he merely codified and put into writing harmonic concepts that many learned musicians were already using, both in the tonal field like Bach, Mozart.... and in the modal field like Debussy, Liszt, Satie....... and with this, I also wish to emphasize the fact that such a text would be of enormous utility in Music Conservatories.

I have been dealing with modal harmony for years and consider the text a milestone for anyone wishing to seriously delve into music; in fact, it surprises me that most Italian music conservatories do not consider such a text at all, or do so very marginally. It is a text that must be taken very seriously because it addresses harmonic concepts viscerally; what it teaches concerns not only modal harmony but also tonal harmony: Russell, in fact, starts from a different concept when approaching the theme of "Harmony," then starting from this concept, everyone can move towards tonal, modal, or intervallic harmony. With what I have said, I want to dispel what is commonly said around, namely that such a text introduces exclusively towards modal harmony. I also wish to clarify some concepts to avoid misunderstandings on the part of those who might wish to purchase the book, which has a cost that is, in my opinion, not high given the importance of what it teaches.

The text by Russell introduces the concept of "Chordmode," meaning that every chord is indissolubly married to one and only one harmonic environment defined as a "mode"; in other words, every chord entails the use of an exclusive modal scale that is either unaltered or altered according to increasing hierarchies of alteration. Let me explain with examples:

In tonal harmony, we use the same scale on different chords (horizontal harmony); for example, if we take the chordal triads resulting from the C Ionian scale, they are C, D-, E-, F, G, A-, in a piece in the key of C, when we find such chordal triads, we always perform melodic lines taken from the C Ionian scale on them. If instead we apply Russell's Lydian concept, then on the C chordal triad we perform the C Lydian scale, on D- we perform the D Dorian scale, on E- we perform the E Aeolian scale, on F we perform the F Lydian scale, on G the G Mixolydian scale, on A- the A Dorian scale. As you can see, while fundamentally remaining in the key of C maj, the scales we use on the chords derived from that key belong to other keys; this determines the verticalization of harmony and avoids the monotony resulting from the excessive use of the Ionian scale on every chord, especially if we keep in mind that we can also use altered scales belonging to the same tonal environment—for example, instead of using unaltered A Dorian, we use an altered A Dorian scale; then the palette of colors becomes truly immense. Another example: if in the key of C maj we find the D- chord, we perform the D Dorian scale; if we find the same chord in the key of F maj, then we perform the D Aeolian scale; if we find it in the key of Bb, then we perform the D Phrygian scale; thus, the scale that, in tonal harmony, we perform on the D- chord changes because it depends on the underlying key of the piece, whereas according to Russell's concept, every time we find the D- chord, we must always perform the D Dorian scale or one of its altered sisters; this allows us to verticalize harmony simply because we move away from the underlying key of the piece. So, Russell is practically telling us that every chord is linked to a specific scale REGARDLESS OF THE UNDERLYING KEY of the piece. To every chord, we link a specific modal scale regardless of the key. This is what G. Russell's modal idea consists of.

I also wish to clarify one more thing: "Modal Harmony" proper is something else entirely; it does not start from the chord, it considers only the Mode, which should no longer be understood as a modal scale but must be understood as a whole, in its overall sonority, in the emotional and characterful message that it transmits. The Mode thus conceived does not require chordal applications of a tertian nature, it does not require cadences, it does not require resolutions, it does not require any harmonic hierarchy of a tonal nature; its notes, taken from the relative modal scale, all have the same dignity, the tonic totally loses its meaning of harmonic prevalence over the other notes of the mode, the concepts of minor or major scales no longer exist, there is only the Mode.

I am not doing this for advertising, but I am informing you that within the scope of studying Russell's text, which for me occurred about thirty years ago,"

I was jotting down some notes which I then organized into a handout written in a concise and functional Italian language.

Furthermore, I wrote a text titled "Functional Harmony - modalization of tonal, modal, chromatic harmony". In this text, I exhaustively and currently address "Modal Harmony" in the strict sense.