Re: Chord names broken since 2.16

[Flaming Hakama by Elaine]

From: Jan Kohnert <address@hidden>
To: Lilypond-User Mailing List <address@hidden>
Subject: Re: Chord names broken since 2.16

Am , schrieb Kieren MacMillan:
> Hi all,
>
>> add9 is different from sus2, as add11 is different from sus4
>
> Really? In the musical theatre world, "add9? rarely (if ever) appears;
> the preferred notation is ?add2? (which, as a side benefit, makes
> sight reading things like ?C9? even faster and less error-prone).

you might be true in this special case, but I (in my personal view)
consider this to be inconsistent. And that is why:
Csus2 = <c d g>
Cadd9 = <c e g d>
Csus4 = <c f g>
Cadd11 = <c e g f>

I think you misread Kieren's comment.

He was suggesting add2 as a clearer alternative to add9.

Not sus2, but add2.

For starters, the 2nd and 9th are synonymous, so there is no lack of clarity about which notes are in the chord in either case.
And with a 2, you don't introduce the concept of "but what about the 7th?" that naturally pops into one's head when you see a chord with a 9th.

 

You see, there's a different meaning in the chords, since there's
another musicional intention behind it: either I want the 3rd (whether
minor or major) to be played (regardless of the instrumentalist beeing
able to play it (again: Guitarist)), or not. And the chords sound
different, as they should? :)

I would say that the biggest theoretical/ideological difference when discussing chords is whether you are using the chord symbol to specify/analyze a specific voicing, or whether you are using it to indicate the musical context--for example, chordal players who "comp" notes of their own choosing, or melodic players who are improvising.

In the first context, it is a tautology to say that non-identical chords sharing the same chord symbol is problematic.

In terms of the latter musical context, the add9 is ambiguous, since it leaves open the question of whether the chord functions as a dominant or not.  Yes, we all understand that when you write add9 you don't want to hear a 7th.  But that does not mean that in the tonal musical context the 7th somehow disappears.  If a melodic player wanted to play a 7th while this chord occurs, even as a passing tone, which one would he or she choose?  This is why "add9" chords are virtually nonexistent in Jazz charts, since they do not  supply musicians what they need to know to do their job.

Not to say that there aren't sublime examples of using "addX" chords.  But honestly, most of the time I've seen "addX" chords, the sole reason for the "addX" is that there is a melody note "X" that doesn't fit into the chord, and its presence is made known by specifying "addX" to the chord.  The "X" note is not so much a part of the "chord" proper, but an artifact of the melody.  (And in my opinion, in these cases, it probably sounds best to have the chordal player play the basic chord and not attempt to voice the "X" pitch, and let the melody player have free reign to phrase the "X" without collision.  Unless of course, the reason for adding that note to the chord is to support singers who can't carry a pitch unless it is being sounded by someone else.)

To be clear, I fully support lilypond being able to distinguish add9 chord from a dominant 9th chord (which it does already, by the way, even if it prints the same chord symbol for both of them as a default behavior.)  But, let's not raise this edge case to some pedestal of chordal juju.  It should be sufficient to modify the chord symbol used for "add9" to say "add9" rather than "9".

(I'm not just ranting, see below for how to do this.)

 

Agreed. I'd suggest a notation where one can select different defaults,
varying by the the intended musicians to read the score.

While I agree with this sentiment, I think that it is important to recognize that chord notation has many more variations than most other aspects of music notation.  Both in terms of syntax ( "M", "maj", triangle, nothing, etc. to represent major) as well as intention (literal voicings, harmonic function, tabulature), there is still quite a bit of variation.  Moreover, it is sometimes desirable to write the "same" chord in different ways, depending on the context.   The notion that there is only one "right" spelling for a given chord is, in my opinion, a slightly misguided notion.

As a result, I suspect that anyone who is doing anything moderately complicated for any length of time will run into a case where he/she need to learn how to modify the chord syntax.

I agree that it would be helpful to have a few options for chord sytle sheets.  Then again, there already are a few, such as the current default, the ubiquitous "Jazz chords" and "Pop chords", and the forthcoming B+R stylesheet.

How about we start with making these easy to find, and include clear instructions for how to use them?

Next up would be instructions on how to add your own variations beyond these common stylesheets.
Here are my notes on this topic:   http://flaminghakama.com/flaming-lilypond-chords

Here is one way to add the "add9" chord symbol:

\version "2.19.5"

myChordExceptions = { <c e g d'>1-\markup { add9 } }
chExceptions = #(append (sequential-music-to-chord-exceptions myChordExceptions #t) ignatzekExceptions)

myChordSequence = \chordmode {
  \set chordChanges = ##t
  \set chordNameExceptions = #chExceptions
  c1:5.9
}

myMelody = \relative c'' {
  c8 d2..
}

<<
    \new ChordNames \myChordSequence
    \new Staff {
      \myMelody
    }
>>

Cheers,

David Elaine Alt

415 . 341 .4954                                           "Confusion is highly underrated"

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skype: flaming_hakama
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