Re: Lilypond and Jazz chords

[Thomas]

hi,
just one idea to think about:
if you read Werner Pöhlert's "Basic Harmoy" (a very thick volume) he 
explains that every move from chord to chord is a fifth (= = half-step), so 
if you want to produce consistent jazzchord names from given notes, the most 
logical think would be to analyse the notes in the following way:

(1) recognize the root movement (half-tone, whole-tone[= = fifth or 2 x 
fifth],  fourth/fifth) from the preceeding chord and thereby the root of the 
new chord
(2) determine the quality of the new chord. there exist only 5 types of 
triads ... major, major +5, major -5, minor, minor - 5 ... all other 
existing chords are just composed as a mix of that triads. so if you have 
the root, identify the basic triad, and than the other triads that are mixed 
in to make it a fancy jazz chord ....and then apply defined naming rules, 
ie. a mix of Gminor-triad  with Bbmajor-triad is called Gm7, or more 
generally, a minor triad with a major triad based on it's third mixed in is 
called a m7 chord with the name of the root of the minor triad.

I think only going back to this most basic building blocks of chord movement 
and chord composition there ist a chance to automatically recognize chord 
names and not get lost in the endless possibilities of chord interpretation 
and spelling....
cheers
thomas


"Grammostola Rosea" <address@hidden> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:address@hidden
> Johannes Schöpfer wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>> As I already said some time ago when I made my own chordnames functions, 
>>> I still believe chordnames should be seperated from chords, or at least 
>>> chords shouldn't produce chordnames since it'll never be clear. And the 
>>> other way round there can also occur problems, i.e. with C7alt., how 
>>> should Lilypond know which chord to display then.
>>>
>>> Another thing is the exceptions list.
>>> I think instead of defining some standards (\realbook, etc.) it would be 
>>> easier to just type what you mean, maybe something like c:m7, c:mi7, 
>>> c:-7
>>> That way everyone could just type each chordname as they want it to be 
>>> displayed instead of selecting an exception for each from a list.
>>
>> I have an idea that goes in that direction.
>> It would simplify both entry and interpretation:
>>
>> Basenotes are the only thing really needed to be recognized as note to 
>> make a chord(meaning just the basenote) transposeable and to get the 
>> duration.
>> Anything else may be added without interpretation.
>>
>> Syntax proposal for \chordName:
>> Basenote[:optional text] [optional anyextension] [ optional "/" for 
>> slash-chords [Basenote ...]]
>>
>> Input examples:    Displayed like:
>> eb maj7b5    \markup {\concat{Eb\super maj7b5}}
>> eb \triangle     \markup {\concat{Eb\super \triangle ##f}}
>> eb:add9        \markup {\concat{Eb\tiny "add9"}}
>> eb:omit3 7    \markup {\concat{Eb\tiny "omit3" \super 7}}
>> eb m7b5        \markup {\concat{Eb\super m7b5}}
>> eb ø7        \markup {\concat{Eb\super ø7}}
>> eb/G        \markup {\concat{Eb/G}}
>> eb maj7/f lala    \markup {\concat{Eb\super maj7 /F\super lala"}}
>> eb mixolydian    \markup {\concat{Eb\super mixolydian}}
>>
>> New shortcuts like \triangle may be useful, for "ø" for example.
>> \maj may be an alias for \triangle
>>
>> This would remove any exeptions for chordentry as anything is dispalyed 
>> as it was entered.
>> Displaying the whole chord(<es g bes d>) interpreted as notes would not 
>> be possible, but i personally never needed that.
>>
>>
> Please take also care of the user friendlessness to display the chords.
>
> \r