Re: Typesetting chord symbols

[Flaming Hakama by Elaine]

> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2015 02:09:27 +0000
> From: Carl Sorensen <address@hidden>
> To: Thomas Morley <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Typesetting chord symbols
>
> On 12/29/14 12:42 PM, "Thomas Morley" <address@hidden> wrote:
> >
> > I'm thinking about a major revision of our chord-naming-procedures for
> > quite a while.
> > Something at the lines of:
> > -Don't do any formating in basic functions/definitions
> > -Store all data in lists
> > -As _last_ step write a formatter
> >
> >
> > Carl, what do you think?



I'm glad that effort is going into chord symbols!

I'm no Carl.  But here are some observations I hope might be useful.

 

> As a starter, we could have things like the following (taken from Brandt and Roemer):

I admit to not being familiar with this seminal work.  I wonder how much it reflects common practice?
In any case, I am simply going to speak from my own experience writing and reading chord charts.

> root

A root like "Ab" will be constructed out of more than one font:  the "A" from a text font, and the flat from a music font.

As such, I can imagine wanting to be able to specify the relative size and alignment (both horizontal and vertical for both parts of the rootl, as well as right padding before what comes next.

( I've also found that, when transposing chord charts I often need to tweak them so that, for example, ii-V-I cadences all have the same sharp/flat enharmonicity. 

I don't have a well-formed request at the moment, but just throwing out the idea that it might be fruitful to consider transposition not just of single notes (chord roots), but of sequences of chords. )

> mode (major or minor)?

I would argue that the basic types of chords represented by chord symbols might include:
   major
   minor
   dominant
   diminished
   augmented
   half-diminished

Of course this list could get arbitrarily long.  But my motivation for listing these, and not others, is threefold. 

1) These are all diatonic 7th chords--at least, if you count the harmonic minor scale as diatonic.  ( On this basis, you could also say that minor with a major 7 is also diatonic.  Except no one uses non-compound symbols for that chord, so it does not add uniquely to the chord symbol lexicon. )

2) For each of these chords types, there are at least 2 common styles for notating them. 
Some of these styles follow patterns, and could be grouped as such.
It might make sense to offer configuration that let you choose a preferred style, which applies for all chord types for which your style defines a treatement.
Since not every style has distinct symbols for each of these chord types, ideally there could be a cascade to resolve treatments that are not in your preferred style.

3) I find that in practical use, it is far more important that the the chord type be easier to parse visually than extensions and alterations.  in practical terms, this means that I like to format the 7 for a dominant chord larger than any extensions (like b9, #9). 
Similarly, the desired formatting of the symbols or letters that represent that chord type may generally be different than either the size/alignment of either the root, or the extensions.

Therefore, I would suggest we think in terms of "chord type" rather than just "mode" to describe what goes in between the root and the extensions.

Here are the categories of chord symbol treatment I am thinking of:

   symbols: triangle, dash, seven, circle, plus, empty set

   three-letters: maj, min, dim, aug

   single letters: M, m

   minimal: nothing for major, treat everything that isn't major or minor as a dominant with extensions: 7 #5 for augmented, m7b5 for half-diminished

> added-bass

Does this refer to slash chords?

> modifiers (maybe a list -- I.e. sharp9, flat5)

There should be a difference between considering modifiers in chord definitions versus symbolic representation.
In some cases, you can't spell a chord without using modifiers (like a 7 b9 #9) . 
Whereas in other cases, use of modifiers is a stylistic choice of notating a chord using modifiers rather than more compact symbols.  For example, writing m7b5 and 7+5 rather than half-diminished or aug7, where the modified 5ths might be called out as an extension, or not, depending on the choice of chord symbol style.

> polychord

Not sure how this differs in notation from a slash chord, except that you have two full chords notated, rather than a chord and a bass note.

Probably has implications for how lilypond internally represents chords as a group of notes, which I have not thought about.

> omissions

I have literally never seen a chord symbol (in actual musical context) that refer to omissions.

I'm sure some people would actually write chord symbols with omissions (rather than using things like "add 9").

If so, more power to them.  But from my standpoint, this does not fall under core chord symbol practice.

I realize lilypond lets you define chords using omissions.  And you can certainly conceive of chords in that way.
But I think that is more of a conceptual choice, and not in the domain of how you notate the symbol. 

> inversion? (not strictly necessary for printing a chord symbol, but probably useful for defining a chord structure -- and  I think that the alist should be used to define the chord structure).

I agree.  And I tend to view this in the same way as omissions:  not part of the typical chord symbol language.  I suppose this is accomplished using slash chords to indicate an inversion.

HTH,

David Elaine Alt

415 . 341 .4954                                           "Confusion is highly underrated"

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