Such a change would only negatively affect anyone who used c:sus to indicate a power chord.
Regarding the "what chords mean" question,
I share everyone's enthusiasm for tackling music theory questions,
as well as colourful ways of voicing common chord symbols.
However, if you view lilypond as a notation program,
then the practical question becomes,
if I want to print a certain chord symbol,
what to I write for the input
(and do I need to customize the chord symbol for that note set)?
So, the questions about inversions and complicated sus chords
seem to be a bit of a diversion on the topic of how to notate C5.
However, I have a few comments about these topics anyway.
> Well, in his explanation of sus chords, Levine indicates that that
> he does not interpret "sus" to be exactly synonymous with "sus4". At
> one point, he wrote "A persistent myth about sus chords is that 'the
> fouth takes the place of the third.' Jazz pianists, however, often
> voice the third with a sus chord" (The Jazz Piano Book, p.24).
However, if you look at the Real Book for Hancock's charts,
they use the notation like D7sus4 for all those chords.
(The last time I participated in such a discussion on this list,
I was also convinced that there were lots of pure Dsus or Dsus7 or D7sus
examples out there. But what I found after looking through a
dozen real books is that almost everyone uses D7sus4, in all
cases. There may be a conceptual difference such as Levine is
arguing, but I would contend that it is not reflected in actual practice
in terms of chord symbol notation.)
When you say that there is a difference between D7sus and D7sus4,
are you saying that you want to be able to notate chords as D7sus,
in addition to and distinct from notating chords as D7sus4?
If so, that is an actual task since, to do so, you would have to have them
defined by different note sets. If <d g a c> is D7sus4, what notes would
you want to mean D7sus?
> > I tend to think that the sus implies 4, unless otherwise noted.
> Why? Why not 2 or 3 or 5 or 6 or 7? I disagree!
It is difficult to understand the musical motivation behind this
argument.
You would "suspend" the third, but then play a 3rd anyway?
Since the 5 is in every C chord (except augmented or diminished),
why would "sus" have anything to do with 5?
My opinion derives only from experience. I have never seen, in classical
usage, the term "suspended" chord refer to anything other than a chord where
the 3rd is not present in in its place there is either the 2 or 4.
The reasons I say that 4 is the default is that, for starters, 4-3 is way more common.
It can also be "explained" by common voice-leading rules as to why
the motion 4-3 is more compelling than 2-3 in terms of suspension-resolution:
4-3 it is a closer interval, and the motion is downward.
Finally, consider the terminology: Do you "suspend" things by lowering them?
No, typically, things are suspended by raising them. When things are no
longer suspended, they lower back to the ground.
Hence, 4-3 as the canonical suspended sound.
Regarding higher numbers like Dsus7, that is usually a shorthand for D7sus4.
The sus still refers to replacing the 3rd with a neighbor,
not replacing the 3rd with the 7th.
David Elaine Alt
415 . 341 .4954 "Confusion is highly underrated"
address@hiddenself-immolation.info skype: flaming_hakama
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