ZOOT ALLURES: HARMONIES - PREFERRED AND UNSTABLE CHORDS?

Brett Clement. Response to Kasper Sloots, page 113 (blue is me, red is Brett). His choice of words around "instrument of your choice" is peculiar. Logically that would mean one could test his first rule for Aeolian too in this manner and that it applies to music in general. Let's assume this is a slip of the tongue and that he means in the context of Zappa's instrumental music.

Outrage at Valdez, bars 1-3 (midi file).
Pygmy twylyte (A token of his extreme), solo section (midi file).
The idiot bastard son, intro from the YCDTOSA II version (midi file).
Sheik Yerbouti tango, bars 9-12 (midi file).
Peaches III, main theme (midi file).
Dupree's paradise (1974, Erie), bars from the guitar solo (midi file).
The curse of the Zomboids, bars from the guitar solo (midi file).

Examples of Zappa using the triad and suspended chords upon the Aeolian and Dorian tonic (note examples).

Regarding the first example, Brett doesn't really deny it's an example to the contrary, just calling it flawed (Response to Kasper Sloots, page 123). So, according to Brett that would be a "second" example violating his first rule, see below for the first one, but who is hearing "the very strong and dissonant" effect here? Regarding the second one he doesn't deny this either. Instead he writes: "I won't bother to respond here. Since this is improvisation by George Duke, and therefore not composed by Zappa, it doesn't apply to the conversation". It is improvised accompanying Zappa, landing on an official album, but how can that affect how it sounds? How can it sound unstable if Zappa would have put it on paper, and normal when George is playing the same on keyboard, like Brett is suggesting himself ... "instrument of your choice". The least Zappa could then have done is instruct his band by saying something like "don't play a triad, sus2- or sus4-chord upon the tonic when we're in Aeolion, that creates a dissonance with the overall tonic of my instrumental music". As it comes to the third example Brett does deny it's in D Dorian. Instead he claims it's in A Dorian with the F in the sus2 progression being a non-scale note. I agree that it's possible to reason like that for theme 1 of this song (where the sus2 sequence moves over to an A pedal), but certainly not for the intro. Check it yourself, bars 2-5 follow D Dorian and they don't move over to an A pedal, but a chromatic passage. Ruth Underwood plays the sus2 sequence separately on the Classic albums series as sounding typical of Zappa (see the YCDTOSA vol. II section of this study for the details). Then you want people to hear it as in A Dorian with the F being an altered note? Regarding the Sheik Yerbouti tango and Peaches III, Brett doesn't deny that these examples can be interpreted as examples to the contrary. In this case he's arguing that these two examples don't count for not following the pitch structures of a Lydian system. Kind of vague and arguable (it's instrumental, the area Brett wrote his Lydian theory for, it's not a parody, it's not typical "functional harmony" ...). If you would allow it to be discussed, would then an outcome of a discussion determine if you're hearing it as consonant or not? Personally I'm calling something consonant or dissonant, independent of the name somebody wants to give to the bars where they occur. The "Dupree's paradise" example wasn't released when Brett wrote his response. It's an example of Zappa himself playing F#m and F#sus4 upon the F# Aeolian tonic. The same goes for the 1972 version of Montana, with a vamp in F# Aeolian. You can frequently hear the F#m chord during this solo. In section H of "The grand wazoo" Zappa prescribes the Bm7 chord in B Aeolian (like the stacking of thirds in Mixolydian halts at the triad in Brett's table, it gets questioned altogether in Aeolian). The main progression from "Any downers" is an example where the context is getting problematic from the angle of a theory for instrumental music. When it has lyrics it wouldn't be relevant, but when Zappa starts soloing over it, one is expected to consider this unstable. Of course this doesn't play any role when this theory has no meaning to you, it sounds just as normal instrumentally as with lyrics. "The curse of the Zomboids (I'm the slime)" example comes from the 2023 "Overnite sensation" Deluxe edition, a passage in F# Aeolian with the F#m chord. The first bar from the Blessed relief example contains another example of a sus2 chord upon a Dorian tonic. Over an F# pedal, George Duke plays C#-G# and Zappa a C#. It is an improvised studio recording, but if it was to sound unstable, something Zappa wouldn't do on paper, then why not replace these bars? The band always did multiple takes with Zappa editing the results.
Brett himself claims that he only encountered one example to the contrary, the citation below from page 152 of his 2014 article. Pitches 5-7 from stacking 5ths in A Lydian are C#-G#-D#, voiced as a C#sus2 on "Waka/Jawaka". This example is present in my study (see the Waka/Jawaka section).



In case of Lydian, and Lydian only, the overall Lydian tonic of Brett's Lydian systems can actually be heard. In this case you can hear the G#-A dissonance (the G# from the chord and the A by the bass). Still it's not as striking a dissonant accompanying chord as D#-E-G#-A would be, an incomplete 13th chord, with both minor seconds from the Lydian scale in it. While Brett is concentrating upon chords upon the tonic, one might reason his rules can also be applied to the corresponding scale steps from the other modes. Brett himself is here opening this door by presenting a sus2-chord in Lydian upon step 3 of this scale, which is the main reason I'm pointing at this remark. Similarly his rules can be applied to other chords too, the triad and sus4-chord upon step 3 in Lydian should be heard as unstable too, as well as the sus2-chord upon step 6. Likewise this can be done for the other scales. This brings us back to the Mm7 chord. In his 2009 study he seems to object to the Mm7 chord not only upon the Mixolydian tonic, but in general, presenting the Mm7 upon step 5 in Ionian as not belonging to a Lydian system. In his response to me, however, he states that he objects to Mm7 in Mixolydian only. Aren't we then reasoning in a circle? Again: Brett himself has opened this door.

As said, on a very abstract level it's possible to follow Brett's reasoning. Basically it needs two requirements from the listener, when listening to Zappa's instrumental diatonic music:
- You always have to be aware what the overall tonic of the Lydian system is (staff 3 below).
- What Brett is calling "lead tones" should be avoided. So forms of dissonances with this overall tonic should bother you for destabilizing the Lydian system (chords 1-5 below).



- Chord 1: the upper note of the tritone from this G7 chord is the overall Lydian tonic F from staff 3, violating Brett's tritone restriction.
- Chords 2-5: the E in these Dorian and Aeolian chords creates a dissonance/unstability with the overall Lydian tonic F. As long as this Lydian tonic isn't actually played, I'm not hearing it. When forcing yourself hearing it, by playing staff 3 too, wouldn't that create an inconsistency? Wouldn't the key then not become Lydian by definition?
- Chords 6-7: chords in Lydian, incomplete F11 and Fmaj7 chords. That is what in particular sounds dissonant to me, audible minor seconds.

Brett's Lydian theory is what sometimes has been called an "academic" theory, a theory that you can construct in your mind, but that can't function in reality. So far I'm the only one who has questioned it in print (pdf-file, article or book). Charles Ulrich and Chanan Hanspal have given their full-hearted support of this theory, both after a discussion about it had arisen, so there are people who find Brett's way of reasoning persuasive.
Something one has to realize is that the Lydian theory can't live without Brett's rules of consonance/dissonance. Without them it can't explain anymore what it wants to explain. It would become an empty shell. If there weren't any rules, Brett's example 6 from above would come to look as:



Table B. The stacking of thirds and positioning of sus-chords (incl. inversions) upon tonics. This isn't a Sloots theory, a revised LCC theory, a revised Lydian theory or whatever. This is common knowledge. And this is how Zappa is actually using these chords.
In case you would reduce Brett's theory to something as meaningless as that he has shown the importance of pedal notes and sus-chords in Zappa's music, you can immediately see that there would be no musicological reason why Zappa would prefer Lydian and Dorian over Mixolydian, Ionian and Aeolian, the thing Brett wanted to explain.

Martin Herraiz wrote his study before Brett's Response was made available. Martin writes:



About which I'm saying (in blue) and Brett (in red):



To me this doesn't make sense. How many examples to the contrary does one need to reject Brett's theory? Moreover Brett is giving a musicological reason why some chords should be avoided. Then it's not about how many examples to the contrary might be encountered, but how they sound. Even I am not suggesting there might be just as many as there are in favour. What I am saying that these chords sound perfectly normal in the context of Zappa. The second argument is strange too. Is Martin here suggesting that someone better needs table A instead of table B for relating modes and sus-chords? Or that people before Brett had problems with relating scales and sus-chords, table B not being common knowledge? I know that sounds silly, but what else could it mean? The only real difference between table A and table B is that Brett calls a number of chords dissonant or destabilizing in his Lydian system.



Martin, "yetanother", is here trying to throw with some mud (screenshot from the Zappateers site). Between the lines you can notice an argument fails. The actual reason why people as Martin are so eager to associate themselves with Brett's theory can only be its suggestive nature. It's all written in a highly-educated form, way more complex as I or Wolgang Ludwig are describing examples. It gives people the idea that something at a higher musicological level is happening, a point where you can get at conclusions other people couldn't come up with. And you indeed have people who can't accept the idea that a composer ever set out to compose without any system. You indeed have people like Mike Pierry who start cheering when Brett found out that Zappa used a system after all:



This situation has spoiled a lot. With reputations involved you know a number of people will do anything rather than admit mistakes. It might take years, maybe decades, before this normalizes. I'm just the first to have overtly questioned Brett's Lydian theory.



It's highly unlikely that this citation of Terry Bozzio (Orchestral favorites 40th anniversary booklet) is directly related to the discussion above. Rather it's a sponteneous estimation of Zappa's music and this is how people not acquainted with Brett's theory normally talk about his music. When you take it literally it denies the existence of rules, thus also the ones that define consonance and dissonance in a Lydian system.