Carl D. Sorensen wrote:
Yes, this is what is needed. But I have a reference for chord naming at
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory17.htm#namechords
If this is wrong, then corrections would be appreciated.
That look pretty good, I disagree here and there (some small some
larger objections), but I like the fact that he includes the
sometimes-fighting-against-each-other-names (for instance some people
can spend hours discussing why "C5" is correct and "C(omit3)" is not).
I think a complete, consistent definition of what names IMO are
considered good practice in Europe, would be the most useful to you.
Did you consider implementing several parallel naming conventions? I
think that would be best, since different people insist on a certain
name for a chord, and those "certain names" often fall in sets that
seems to be geographically oriented.
Note that for this part, I'm only concerned about the naming, not the
symbols.
What do you mean by "naming"?
I do see disagreement between what Dolmetsch says about C/E and what
Juergensen says:
<http://chrisjuergensen.com.hosting.domaindirect.com/chords_symbols_1.htm>
There's something fishy in his argumentation for C,D,G = Csus2. I
think he is wrong there.
Dolmetsch says the 5th in a C/E is below the C; Juergensen says it's
above.
That's the only contradiction I've found so far.
IMHO that's nonsense, sorry. Chord symbols don't translate into
voicings like that. Here and there there are rules, but that more like
good practices and people like Monk and Ellington breaks them all the
time. I actually don't see where any of the links you mentions claim
anything about the 5th being above or below the root?
Actually that was one of the things I found odd the last time I looked
at lilypond (maybe it has changed): To get it to write the chord
cymbol C13 I had to write a big, fat chord that spelled like "C, E, G,
Bb, D, F, A" and sounds like... not so nice, I'm sorry. Nobody would
ever voice a C13 like that! A simple voicing would be C, E, Bb, D, A
(has to have C one octave below middle C) but there are endless other
possibilities.
Anyway, I'd welcome any corrections to these naming rules, or if you
have
your own complete set of these rules already written out, I'd be
happy with
that as well.
As already mentioned, I think that a couple of well defined "systems"
or "logics" for chord names should be included, one fairly well
defined one that even has it's own name is Berklee, one that I'm not
too familiar with unfortunately.