I’m sitting in front of a police station somewhere in London, using their free internet. Chaos rules!
I arrived in London yesterday, horribly sleep deprived but OK. In the early evening I had a nice practise session with Björk, Damian, Mark and Chris, but not Toumani as I had expected as he is just coming straight to Glastonbury. Hope, which is the song we are doing, will be more or less an improvisation on my part as I’m going to follow Toumani’s lead.
In my understanding my role in Hope is to be “the Lydian front” which will give Toumani the freedom to do what he wants. Björk’s music is usually in the Lydian mode (which is a normal major scale but with a sharp fourth note - for instance, a C major scale would have an F sharp, not F natural) and my improvisation is supposed to emphasise that characteristic.
Some of us are going to Glastonbury tonight. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to walk on top of the Tor and see the healing well. Should be fun!
Concerning the Lydian mode:
“We hear the Lydian fourth (a raised fourth in the context of a major tonality) in the famous first phrase of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Maria’ from West Side Story. We hear a Lydian fourth in the accompaniment of the opening song ‘Bonjour’ from Alan Menken’s score for the Walt Disney production of Beauty and the Beast. We hear Lydian formulations cascading through the lush orchestrations that accompany the closing credits in John Williams’ score for E.T. . There is a kind of false leading note built-in to the character of the Lydian fourth ” it aspires toward the dominant in just the same way that the traditional concept of a leading note aspires toward the tonic. The Lydian contains an element of aspiration, yearning almost, within its structure. It has come to be associated with innocence (Maria, Beauty and E.T.), coupled with fervent desire, as in the yearnings of children. To demonstrate this, takes any of the examples cited above, and play them on a keyboard with the Lydian fourths lowered, so that the scale resembles a traditional major scale. It will be sensed that the peculiar quality of innocence, yearning and naiveté that the Lydian fourth brings to the music will at once disappear.”
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