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Re: chord names with lowered bass


From: Tim McNamara
Subject: Re: chord names with lowered bass
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:55:37 -0500

On Jun 28, 2011, at 8:59 PM, David Raleigh Arnold wrote:

> On Sunday, June 26, 2011 07:11:37 PM Tim McNamara wrote:
>> On Jun 26, 2011, at 2:06 PM, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> 
>>>> That's the way I use it as well.  But I'm totally familiar with
>>>> this being C/E.  That's the only layout I've ever seen for this
>>>> kind of notation.
> 
> Before 1960 or so C/E was called a polychord. C/Bb was equivalent
> to a complete C11 chord. It was well understood, but very little
> used, so as soon as the slash bass was invented it replaced the
> polychord. Nevertheless, that is all the more reason to use C/e
> for the slash bass, and reserve C/E for the rare polychord.

P'raps, but almost any American jazz musician familiar with the Real Books 
seeing C/E is going to interpret that as a C triad over an E bass note rather 
than as a polychord.  C/e is just going to be confusing as to what you mean. 
There are few of us left gigging who were seeing charts prior to 1960...  many 
of us were born around then.  We're used to C/E as a slash chord rather than as 
a poychord.

FWIW, polychords IME are usually written in the format of

C
-
E

which seems to me to be distinct enough from the slash chord.  As jazz 
scholarship has improved, though, chords that would formerly be written as 
polychords to convey the idea quickly (E triad left hand, C triad right hand) 
are now usually written with the extensions specified in various ways such as 
Bb13b9 instead of a polychord of G triad over Bb7.  Sometimes the extensions 
are parenthesized or the chord is just written as "alt" letting the accompanist 
select the notes (which they were going to do anyway).  I don't see polychords 
specified very often at all in the jazz repertoire I play.  The Berklee chord 
name nomenclature has become the de facto standard in most places in the US 
thanks to the Real Books.  YMMV depending on where you live and what chart 
conventions you are used to.

Chord names become rather cumbersome quite quickly in Lilypond, with lots of 
collisions being possible and difficulty with complicated chords with lots of 
extensions.  I'd like to be able to easily stack extensions and to parenthesize 
them easily too, sort of:

c1:7._9+.^13 for a C7 with the #9 and 13 stacked after the chord, or 
c1:7.(_9.^13) for the same thing with the extensions parenthesized.  But that'd 
probably be a *lot* of trouble to get into Lilypond and there are many more 
pressing concerns to focus on.  And I might be the only person who'd want it...

Tim


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