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Re: chordname questions


From: Flaming Hakama by Elaine
Subject: Re: chordname questions
Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:50:04 -0700

Gerry,

> I'm a clarinettist - we are not supposed to do chords, so please forgive me
> if these are idiot questions ....

As a clarinettist, I feel compelled to assert that we have the capacity to do chords just fine.  I hope you are getting more comfortable with it.


> 1. the superscript modifier 6/9 is (from a google search) equivalent to
> 'add6 add9'. Yet lily puts it into the score as '6 add9' which is surely
> not the same thing at all ?

Actually, I think that these are the same, meaning the chord made up of scale degrees 1 3 5 6 9.

One thing to realize is that the way that lilypond prints chord symbols is different from how it represents chords interally.  In this case, you can modify lilypond to print "add6 add9" for this type of chord if you want.

In terms of theory, the notion of "add" comes into play when the numbers get beyond 7, since by convention (both in general musical practice, and in lilypond) anything above or including an unmodified 7 implies that a dominant 7th is in the chord. 

So, for any number less than 7, you can just write that degree after the chord root name, since you don't have to worry about what someone might do with the 7th, because you have not gone that high.  You can make the case that "add 6" is too verbose and perhaps confusing, since "6" gets the point across, and the "add" could make you think for a moment that the extension is actually higher than a 7th, which it is not. (unless, of course, you really mean 13).  This is probably why the default lilypond chord symbol is "6 add9" rather than "add6 add9".


> 2. the 'sus' modifier should be followed by '2' or '4' and if lily finds
> sus on its own it just puts out the basic triad. But some scores include
> all three forms - triad, sus and sus4 implying that they are different.
> Shouldn't the unmodified sus  generate just the first and fifth ?
> (specifying ^3 also seems to generate the full triad).

Suspended "chords" are an area where I think there is less general agreement (in musical practice) about what they mean.

My general understanding about musical practice is that "sus" simply means "there is no 3rd in this 'chord'".  The most typical implication is that you are sounding the 4th instead of the 3rd, meaning scale degrees 1 4 5. 

However, like many things about the way lilypond represents chords, it is a balance between being unambiguous versus following some flavor of common usage.  And in lilypond, the unambiguous often wins out.  In this case, lilypond makes you specify what note is taking the place of the 3rd. 

Not sure I understand why the default behavior of specifying sus without another scale degree gives you a triad (it is certainly not based on typical musical interpretation of sus chords), but again, you have to realize that the chord input syntax is lilypond-specific and different than the dialect of printed chord symbols.

Not quite sure what you mean by scores that have chord symbols that say "triad".  Never seen that before.  In fact, until coming across lilypond, I have never seen anyone write a "sus 2" chord. Just because you have seen something in a score--especially chord changes--doesn't mean that it is normal, accepted and well-understood.  It could just be inconsistent.  In any case, I would assume that both the "sus" and "sus4" mean the same thing.


I hope this helps,

David Elaine Alt
415 . 341 .4954                                           "Confusion is highly underrated"
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skype: flaming_hakama
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