RE: Syntax explanations

[Carl D. Sorensen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Reinhold Kainhofer [mailto:address@hidden
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 12:07 PM
> To: Carl D. Sorensen
> Cc: lily-devel
> Subject: Re: Syntax explanations
>
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>
> Am Mittwoch, 11. Juni 2008 schrieb Carl D. Sorensen:
> > > Maybe you can take a look at the musicxml2ly code
> [...]
> >
> > 1. You put 5 on all of the triads.  Is this so that you can do step
> > removal, addition, or alteration automatically?  It's not
> wrong, but
> > it's not the way chords are "normally" written in LilyPond.
>  Actually,
> > it's more logically consistent.
>
> Exactly, additions/removals/changes are done by simply
> appending the corresponding strings like ".3-". Since I ran
> into trouble with a major chord without the 5 (i.e. c:.3-
> doesn't work), I simply added the 5 to all triads to be on
> the safe side.

I think you only need the 5 on the major triad.  Once you put any of the 
modifiers for the other triads, it automatically knows it's a triad unless 
there is a larger extent.  Only the major triad has no modifier, so it needs an 
extent before you start modifying.

We had some discussion a while ago on -user about having maj be a modifier that 
means a major triad, and maj7 be for a major seventh chord.  However, the sense 
was overwhelmingly against adding it.  People didn't want to have a C major 
chord be named as c:maj; they wanted it to just be c.  With your work, I think 
we should add a feature request to make c be equivalent to c:maj.  I don't know 
how much work that would be, but I don't think it should be much.  Personally, 
I'd rather have your table list 'maj' for a major triad than "5".

Thanks,

Carl