Re: Why don't we get rid of \chordmode?

[Carl Sorensen]

On 4/29/10 2:42 PM, "Graham Percival" <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 08:55:13AM -0600, Carl Sorensen wrote:
>> But we'll need to be sure it handles things like
>> 
>> c\chord #'(1 3- 5-)
> 
> Hmm.  Might we need
>   c\chord #'(1 3++ 7--)
> ?  I'm not prepared to claim that there's no theory of chords that
> includes doubly-augmented intervals relative to the base note.

There is at least one common chord that uses doubly altered steps: the dim7
chord, which uses a double-flatted 7th., along with a minor thrd and a
diminished fifth.  So yes, we do need to allow at least --.  I don't think
we need to go more than two deep on the modifiers, do we?

> 
>> We could even do bass notes
>> 
>> c\chord #'(4 1 3 5)
> 
> I'm not entirely comfortable about have 4 1.

I'm totally comfortable with #'(4 1 3 5).  I can easily parse that so that
steps that come before 1 in the list are an octave down from the current
pitch.


> OTOH, I'm not overly
> eager to have things like
>   c\chord #'(-4 1 3- 5-)
> 
> An alternate that makes sense to me would be
>   c\chord #'(-4 1 3es 5es)
> but then we're dragging language-specific definitions into this
> construct, which would be bad.

I think -4 is confusing, because it sounds like it is 4 steps *below* the
root, instead of step 4 an octave lower.

I'd prefer, if we need to do something, to do

#'(4, 1 3 5), i.e. use the octave indicators we already have.

Thanks,

Carl