Re: Lilypond and Jazz chords

[Thomas]

I was just brainstorming, I don`t expect anybody to implement that :-)
 ... I just thought, if music (as long as it's not abstract) follows some 
basic principles, why this is not reflected in the chord naming sometimes.

Slash Chords are a good example ... they are a good, easily readable 
instruction what notes to play, but they don't reflect the harmonic function 
of the chord.
I'm sure an illiterate gypsy guitarist could improvise very well over that 
Pat Martino song, because he recognizes the tonic or dominat character of 
that chord by ear...
that is the underlying harmonic function ... although he shouldn't be able 
to do that, because slash chords are considered modern, sophisticated, 
difficult....

Lets say, that Martino song has a key and a tonic, and the harmony moves in 
a chain of fifth, half- and whole-tones towards oe away from that tonic, 
then the  Dbmin/D
very likely has a dominant or tonic finction within this chain (depending on 
the rest of this song) and could be named after this function ... but that 
would be more difficult to read probably.

Don't let me be misunderstood... thats just brainstorming about naming jazz 
chords in general (and how chord names sometimes obscure whats going on 
harmonically) ... to implement something like this
would be very difficult, I guess ... I'm only starting to work with lilypond 
and didn't want to introduce overambitiuos goals. I think what you are 
planning to do is very valuable and does not need a deep discussion about 
harmony etc.
cheers
thomas

.

"Tim McNamara" <address@hidden> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:address@hidden
>
> On Jun 1, 2009, at 4:13 AM, Tim Rowe wrote:
>
>> 2009/6/1 Carl D. Sorensen <address@hidden>:
>>
>>> You are welcome to pursue this, if you are interested in it.  It  is not 
>>> my
>>> interest.
>>
>> I think it shows the impossibility of what you are trying to achieve,
>> at least in the completely general case, although pushing the
>> boundaries closer to that general case is valuable of course. Beyond
>> trivial cases, a combination of notes does not have /a/ name, it has
>> many names depending on the musical context.  For jazz chords, the
>> chord notes and the chord names really need to be separated (perhaps
>> an optional name following the notes) unless the software can
>> understand the musical context better than a lot of musicians. Or just
>> stick with chord mode.
>
> Particularly when entering the notes and the root is not the chord  name. 
> For example, a chord I saw in a Pat Martino chart would have  included:
>
> <d des fes aes>
>
> which was written as Dbmin/D.  I have no idea how one would make  LilyPond 
> properly interpret slash chords or compound chords from note  entries. 
> Rendering chords written as chord names (des2:m5/d) would  of course be 
> simpler.