Hi all,
in my study about jazz it became very clear to me that the predefined fretboard diagrams in lilypond are very limited, and why.
There just are too many ways to form a chord on the guitar to list them all. I know the user can create their own custom fretboard tables, but in my case, each time I have to do this, I have to look up examples of code to create them correctly, in other words it often is quite some work.
A book I recently started reading brought me on an idea to expand the predefined chord list.
To make it easier to learn, the author divided the chords in an interesting way, He used the root string, not the root note.
It's just an idea and would not solve all problems, or offer all possible ways to display a chord, but what if, as lilypond user one could choose a fretboard diagram based on the root string. That way it might even be possible to expand the list to inverted chords, using a similar syntax
I was thinking about something like for example:
\chordFretboards = \chordmode {
\set rootString #'6
c4:m
\set rootString #'5
c4:m
}
For inversions one might choose a number based on the n'th note of a chord, for example 2 as the second note from the root note, which in the case of c:m would result in a ees as the lowest note and display a fretboard diagram accordingly.
\invertedChords = \chordmode{
\setrootString #'6
\set inversion #'2
c4:m
}
I think this can be used for other instruments too.
What do you think? Can this be achieved? Is it a good idea to implement, good enough for a feature request? :-) .
grtz,
Bart