Re: Re: Chords and what they mean

[Kaj Persson]

On 2015-09-19 05:06, Brett Duncan wrote:
> On 19/09/15 8:49 AM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> > As you wrote Csus ought to mean that the first third is removed, and 
> > nothing else. Among professional musicians, which I am not, but I 
> > have friends who are, this is not the whole truth, there exists a de 
> > facto standard which does not exactly coincide with the pure logical.
> Not exactly - there are several conventions used by musicians, with a 
> wide range of similarities and differences, but there is no one 
> standard, de facto or otherwise.
>
> > Csus is one example, C5 another. So when I work with these people i 
> > will use their methods and system, not trying to introduce something 
> > else (more "clever"). Therefore it would be fine if one could adapt 
> > LP to the current situation.
> Well, in this instance that might seem reasonable, where we are only 
> talking about simple chords, but where the chords are more complex or 
> follow some other convention, adapting LP might prove a lot more 
> difficult. For example, a lot of jazz charts follow a widely used 
> convention where minor chords are denoted with a minus sign and 
> augmented chords are denoted with a plus sign, i.e.  F-7, G+. But LP 
> uses these symbols in \chordmode for alterations.
>
> But this all just points to the fact that there is a distinction 
> between how chords are entered and how they are displayed. And given 
> that the same chord can be displayed several different ways, that 
> distinction cannot really be avoided. For my own purposes, the default 
> chord names generated by LP are far from ideal, so like many I have a 
> separate file of chord exceptions that I include when I need it. So 
> long as the input method allows me to create the chords I need in a 
> reasonably way and I can get the output to appear as I need it to, 
> there is no need to make the input take the same form as the output.
>
> Brett
Yes, you are completely right, Brett and David. Also, I myself was 
wrong, when I used the term de facto standard. I should have developed 
my discussion a wee more. You might say that the world of music and 
musicians is like an archipelago, with a lot islands. On every of these 
islands they speak their own language, or at least dialect, and 
everybody there understands everyting, as they have common way of 
talking. You might say there is a de facto standard of how to 
communicate. But if you come to another of the islands, you will find 
another vocabulary, which everybody on that island understands. They too 
have a de facto standard, but another one. The standard is not global, 
so some of you would say there is no standard. But such is life 
elsewhere too. Do not tell an American that he/she does not follow a 
standard because he/she measures in inches while most of we others use 
meters. So there are de facto standards in the music world too, and as 
long as you are in one of these islands, which some of us call contexts, 
it is practical to use adapted tools. That makes life easier.

On the other hand, when you are skilled enough, you can use the global 
standard, almost as quickly as the local one, and you make the 
transformations in your head, like American scientists who hardly use 
inches and gallons in their job, but instead the established SI-units.

As you might understand, I here consider the LP way of interpreting the 
symbols the "global" standard (we forget Sibelius and the others), while 
many of us live on our own island, where it might being an aid to use an 
adapted tool. However skilled people like Brett do not need them, they 
fix that in their brains.

Much of my thoughts came from the happiness I felt, and this is not a 
very long time ago, when I first discovered that I can put chord symbols 
direct into LP in chordmode, but also the disappointment I felt when I 
found the deviations. I guess that once in the future, with even more 
experience, I can talk like Brett, and say: I do not need the adaptions 
any more.
/Kaj