I did, as I mentioned earlier, visit my local music store and looked at their selection of fake books. I found what was the first legally published one in its new format. I was dissa pointed. Although it was as nicely typeset as the "New Rea Book" from Shur Music, there was no explanation of what their chords meant. There was simply an index of tunes along with composition and copyright credits. The notes themselves looked as if they had been typset as any music book wouldl have been. The chord indications, howver, looked as if they had been manually entered. So I could see where any standard way of entering chord names slightly changed from time to timne and from context to context.
I am impressed with "The New Reall Book" series from Sher because of the way it is documented and the way they have gone about making sure each tune is following a real standard way of playin the changes. I own some of the recordings they have consulted so I have checked against their source. They've had to make some decisions of their own on a standard way of notating this since they actually send this to print. LIlypond doesn't have to make those choices, merely enable us to express the notes the way we or the composer/arranger intended.
The notation that I was mainly concerned with was how to enter a bass note with the chord indication. I must say, I was shocked. I was both right and wrong in my assertions that the bass note was indicated under the chord name.
The bass note was under the chord name, but with a slash not a straight line as I had stated. So, you can see how I was right and wrong. The slash with the chord name under the chord as they indicate in that publication would conform to what I have known to be correct in the past.
I think now, that the chord along with the intended bass note belong together as an element or object in themselves. Alterations of the chord are a second element or object beside the chord name. These do not happen frequently, but when they do, they are important. Mostly they indicate an inversion of the chord named. These seem to occur most frequently at cadence points. An example occurs in the last bars of "All the Things You Are" where there is a progression with a step-wise bass pattern moving from a firIst inversion of the named chord and ending on the root position. In some cases there are going to be chord indications on each beat. Collisions willl be inevitable. It seems the slash with the bass note close under the chord name made this easier to read.
I gather the slash would have naturally happend when copyists wrote these charts out by hand. Mostly being right handed the slant would naturally occur. What I saw in that publiation was for the most part clear and readable.
I won't argue for or against any one way at this point, just for clarity and compactness. When I get a chance, I will call my Jazz musician friends and see how they expect to see it written. We have a major jazz festival in progress here so everyone is seriously busy. (There was a very good trumpet player int he store trying out instruments and having a long discussion with the sales person about lacquer and how thick it is and what it does to the sound!--- I know, seriously off topic).
Lilypond should not seek to make a new method of entering this type of notation, it shoud simply enable copyists to make their music look the way they or the composer intended and to do it in a way that makes it easy for performing musicians to read. Am I makeing sense here?
cheers, davidf
-- David Fedoruk B.Mus. UBC,1986 Certificate in Internet Systems Administration, UBC, 2003