Opinions on George Russell's 1953 work, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization?

[nolabels]

As a self-taught student of Western music theory, I've formulated my own ideas, regarding the Lydian musical scale as being the most natural musical scale, as opposed to the generally accepted idea of the Ionian scale being the most fundamentally basic, naturally correct major musical scale.
My music theory books touting Ionian as the most natural scale seem quite suspect to me in their explanations of the construction of the Ionian scale.

The Lydian scale is seven tones built on a series of "Fifths", rearranged in scalar order.
That's it.
Done.

The Ionian scale must be manipulated to some extent in its arrangement of intervals in completing its construction into being a heptatonic scale.
It is those manipulations in the construction of the Ionian scale that led to my conclusions, even though there may be some scientific logic in so doing that I might fail to fully recognize and accept as being scientifically proper.

I persisted in my ideas and pursued online discussion and possible confirmation of my theory.
I've found that as Western music theory is not based fully on hard, scientific principles, it is up to individuals to make up their own views on the subject.

After a bit of time in my searches, I discovered George Russell's 1953 treatise on the subject, The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization.

I've found that his work has many critics, as its more advanced concepts tend to get a bit hard to reconcile with the science of music, yet there are people who agree that the Lydian scale is more naturally "buildable" than Ionian, with the possible exception of Ionian being conveniently composed of two identical sets of W-W-H tetrachords separated by one whole step, which is not an unsignificant distinction over Lydian, I must admit.

Nonetheless, I still feel that in its basic form, the Lydian mode of the heptatonic scale is the most naturally arrangeable of the seven different possibilities available.

What say you?

[strateguy632]

The name is boring, and chrome doesn't describe music.

I hope the music in this style is pleasant!

[nolabels]

All righty, then.
Opinion noted.

[nolabels]

The name simply describes the concept, whether it may be found to sound boring to anyone or not.
The word chrome is not part of this name.
The word chromatic is.
Those are two different words, having different meanings.
The word chromatic certainly does apply to music.
Chrome, not so much.

[FunkyMonkee]

How does that translate to drums?

[nolabels]

I'm not a drummer, nor do I portray one in any manner, except on my personal bongos and djembe.

There may a desire to tune the heads of the different drums in one's kit to accommodate different tonal organizations, but...

Oh, WTH am I talking about, I have no frickin' idea.

You have given me a new avenue of research which I may or may not find to be irresistible to further explore, though.

Thanks.

Like I don't have enough crap that I'm behind on getting around to doing.

Lol.

[FunkyMonkee]

Lol!
Yeah, me too! I've got so many things I wanna do or need to do and some I've hardly even started, yet even though I decided to do them at least 20 years ago. Life got in the way for a decade or two, too.
I started hearing about all these ancient scales 19 years ago when I was taking bass lessons and I suppose he expected us to remember what each one was, as well as the circle of 5ths. I never bothered with any of that! I just wanted to learn bass. That teacher and several others have discussed how, supposedly, The Beatles would play this song in Lydian scale, or that one in Mixolydian. etc. I say, BULLSHIT!! Just 3 years before they recorded those songs, they were scrambling all over England every time they heard some other guitarist knew how to play this chord or that chord so they could learn how to play it! I SERIOUS DOUBT they CONSCIOUSLY decided to write this or that in this scale or that! They just came up with a string of chord that sounded great to them and wrote a song around it! George Martin probably told them about the various scales but, unless they REALLY WANTED to learn them, I doubt they paid any attention to what he told them, about them.

[nolabels]

You hit the nail on the head!

Yeah, in most cases, but not all, as there are compositions specifically written for different scales by some composers, artists usually just write their songs, then guys like me come along and dissect the crap out of them.

There are different modes that are more commonly used by different artists and in different genres, too.

Santana uses the Dorian mode a lot.
It tends to have a Latin flavor.

I don't claim to know tons about the subject, as I am self-taught, but I do find it to be interesting.

There are folks who can run circles around me in music theory knowledge, but still, I enjoy its study.

[loves2learn]

I am not qualified to answer this question but I want to ask my 12 year old jazz band player…

[nolabels]

I'll be waiting...

[loves2learn]

Cool. He’s been in bed for like 2 hours but I’ll letcha know.

He’s playing this rn: https://youtu.be/HjylD7esXDo

[FunkyMonkee]

As far as I know, they didn't go jazzy `til the 6th or 7th album. That sing's from the 5th.

[nolabels]

Great tune.
I bought the LP that it's on back when it came out.
I still have it.

[FunkyMonkee]

I never got around to buying 5 or 6. I've got the first 4 and that's it.

[LiamJHayden]

Have not read it, but I use what we call the Lydian Mode in songs.

[nolabels]

Cool.

[Avicenna]

That’s interesting

[nolabels]

Yes, I agree.

Thank you for so saying.