Re: Lilypond and Jazz chords

[Carl D. Sorensen]

On 5/30/09 5:15 PM, "Brett Duncan" <address@hidden> wrote:

> Carl D. Sorensen wrote:
>>>>> My currently-planned starting point for chord naming is
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory17.htm#namechords
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you have any disagreement with this reference, please let me know.
> 
> It looks like a good starting point to me - there are a couple of things
> that don't appear that I have seen in published music (stacked
> additions, for example) - I'll make a list.
> 
>>> Isn't it possible to give more options and be able to choose an way of
>>> noticing?
>>> 
>>> For example
>>> 
>>> \europe
>>> 
>>> \vs
>>> 
>>> \Berklee
>>> 
>>> \realbook
>>> 
>>> \fakebook
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> Yes.  That is why I want to separate naming from displaying, as much as
>> possible.
> 
> Makes sense, but I wonder at how many options would needed - the
> problem, as stated before, is that there is no standard, and every
> publishing house seems to do its own thing, even to the point of having
> different conventions used within the same publishing house.
> 
> I have in front of me right now three pieces which I'm currently
> performing with my jazz ensemble, from two different publishers, all
> bought in the last twelve months. While at first glance they appear
> similar (partly because the same ugly font has been used in all three),
> a closer look reveals that there are differences in the way chords are
> named in all three pieces. Whether this comes from the original
> composer, the arranger or the typesetter is not clear.
> 
> I assume that there would still have to be some means of creating
> exceptions. If someone wants chords named mainly in the Real Book style,
> but with minors notated slightly differently ( Cm / Cmi / C- ) for
> example, would they find themselves having to put together a large list
> of exceptions to get their preferred style? Or would there be some other
> way of 'tweaking' just that aspect of how chord names are displayed?

I haven't done it yet, so I don't know.

But I imagine we can have a property minorSymbol which could have values
like \markup {"m"}, \markup {"mi"}, \markup {"-"}, or 'lowerCaseRootName

Then a user could specify the markup to be used to indicate a minor, etc.

Right now we have a naming problem, separate from the display problem.  If
we can get the code to recognize that we have a Ebmaj7b5, then we can figure
out how to display it in a way that the users will like.  Right now, we
haven't had much luck with anything but exceptions in terms of getting chord
names.

Carl