Re: Chords in LilyPond

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Ivan,

>> How is it "wrong" for the chord <c e g a> to [additionally]
>> include the information 'root = a'?
> 
> In some instances the root could be C and the A would be a passing tone.
> In other instances, calling any of those four tones a root would
> have no meaning.  It would depend on the context.

Correct.

> As I read through this thread though, the sense I get is that
> "chord semantics" are to be additional information optional
> added by the user, so that my fear of lilypond doing ad-hoc
> amateur musical analysis will not be happening (I hope not).

I believe the intention — at least initially — is, as you say, to only have 
user-added semantics.

However, once a structure is in place to store and respond to such semantic 
information, there is nothing to stop someone from trying to program Lilypond 
to do "ad-hoc amateur musical analysis". And I hope they *do* (though I may 
never use it myself). Certainly, with additional semantic information, any 
analysis Lilypond attempts can only be better than it would be currently 
(without such semantic information).

> I would hate to see parts of lilypond break because of the addition of 
> musical analysis.

Well, I believe we're all on the same page there: Charles has been engaged 
specifically to *improve* the chord system, not break it.  ;)

> if the idea is for lilypond to do popular/amateur music
> analysis (calling every "a e g a" chord an a minor 7 chord
> regardless of contexts)

Again, with the addition of semantic information, Lilypond will be able to 
ascertain the context of a chord (and vice versa) without any (or at least with 
much less) manual/human input — this, in my opinion, can only be a good thing.

> that task/goal is going to have
> little meaning for most music.

I suppose that depends on you (or another user’s) definition of "most"… I have 
friends who use Lilypond only for their pop music charts and lead sheets — for 
them, a really good, context-sensitive chord generation and analysis tool would 
have meaning on literally ALL of their music.

Cheers,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden