Beat repeats (sorry for nagging) - and Jazz Chords

[Amelie Zapf]

Hi folks,

First, a great big THANK YOU to our developer team for implementing the beat
and bar repeats. However, I have a slight complaint concerning the beat repeat:

In jazz music, the "beat repeat" tells the player to improvise on the given
chords, leaving open the notes that he or she actually plays. Also, it is very
common in places where there needs to be an accent that you find cross-headed
notes interspersed with said beat repeats or slashes, and sometimes even tied
to them.

So, my question: Would it be trouble to implement a "note of indeterminate
pitch", maybe called "i" for "improvisation", that typesets a "beat repeat",
can be modified in duration (for 6/8 time and the like, and also for the
"shifted accents"), doesn't play back on MIDI and can connect to ties, as in
(we're in 4/4 time now):

        i4 i8 {crossed-head}8 ~ i4 i4
which means:
        improvise, but play a tone on 2-and and hold it, play next note on 4.

This stuff is very common in big band and small group arrangements, so I'd be
glad to see it implemented. 

The bar repeats are used as normal in jazz, so the implementation is just fine.

And another thing about the chord names (jazz notation). There's a couple
things missing (like chords including the #11, which can be major or dominant
chords). I'm working on my own version of the chord-names.scm file now. I'd be
glad to post it here for other users. One thing though: I've changed the
notation from "New Real Book" (using parentheses and symbols like the "slashed
o" to "Old Real Book" (no parentheses, m7b5 instead of "slashed o", interval
sequence (m) 7 9 11 13 5, tones go unmentioned if natural (except 7) if the
"mentioned tone" above is also natural as in C9 b13 instead of C7 (9, b13)). It
generally shortens the whole thing, which is not a bad idea, IMHO. Anyway,
that's enough for today.

Regards,

Amy