The LYDIAN TONIC, as the musical “Star-Sun,” is the
seminal source of tonal gravity and organization of a
Lydian Chromatic scale. […] UNITY is the state in which
the Lydian Scale exists in relation to its I major and VI
minor tonic station chords, as well as those on other scale
degrees. Unity is . . . instantaneous completeness and
oneness in the Absolute Here and Now . . . above linear
time.
The Lydian Scale is the musical passive force. Its unified tonal
gravity field, ordained by the ladder of fifhs, serves as a
theoretical basis for tonal organization within the Lydian
Chromatic Scale and, ultimately, for the entire Lydian Chromatic
Concept. There is no “goal pressure” within the tonal gravity field
of a Lydian Scale. The Lydian Scale exists as a self-organized Unity
in relations to its tonic tone and tonic major chord. The Lydian
Scale implies an evolution to higher levels of tonal organization.
The Lydian Scale is the true scale of tonal unity and the scale
which clearly represents the phenomenon of tonal gravity itself.
Only genius is imbued with a sense of tonal space. It is its
innate awareness, just as the concepts of physical space
(as extension of of the human body) and time (as growth
and development of the body) are inborn, innate in every
human as part of the sense of their own body.
On rare occasions one encounters the substitution of an
inversion for the V or V7 chord at the MC point. Regardless
of whether the dominant has previously appeared in root
position, this situation should be understood as a medialcaesura deformation, which might well impact the
subsequent S.
In a conversation I had with Miles Davis in 1945, I asked,
“Miles, what’s your musical aim?” His answer, “to learn
all the changes (chords),” was somewhat puzzling to
me since I felt—and I was hardly alone in the feeling—
that Miles played like he already knew all the chords.
Afer dwelling on his statement for some months, I
became mindful that Miles’s answer may have implied
the need to relate to chords in a new way.
This motivated my quest to expand the tonal
environment of the chord beyond the immediate tones
of its basic structure, leading to the irrevocable
conclusion that every traditionally definable chord of
Western music theory has its origin in a PARENT SCALE. In
this vertical sense, the term refers to that scale which is
ordained—by the nature of tonal gravity—to be a chord's
source of arising, and ultimate vertical completeness; the
chord and its parent scale existing in a state of complete
and indestructible chord/scale unity—a CHORDMODE.
The chord and its parent scale are an inseparable
entity—the reciprocal sound of one another. . . . In
other words, the complete sound of a chord is its
corresponding mode within its parent scale. Therefore,
the broader term CHORDMODE is substituted for what is
generally referred to as “the chord.”
Russell codified the modal approach to harmony ... inspired by a casual remark the eighteen-year-old Miles Davis made to him in 1944: Miles said he wanted to learn all the changes and I reasoned he might try to find the closest scale for every chord ... Davis popularized those liberating ideas in recordings like Kind of Blue, undermining the entire harmonic foundation of bop that had inspired him and Russell in the first place.
The major scale probably emerged as the predominating scale of Western music, because within its seven tones lies the most fundamental harmonic progression of the classical era ... thus, the major scale resolves to its tonic major chord. The Lydian scale is the sound of its tonic major chord.
