Re: Chords and what they mean

[Blöchl Bernhard]

Am 18.09.2015 04:10, schrieb address@hidden:
> On Thu, 17 Sep 2015, Blöchl Bernhard wrote:
> > <c es f g> I would call (always depending on the context) Cmadd4, 
> > F7sus2/C,
> > D#6no5add2/C.
>
> > Always consider the harmonic context!!!
>
> What exactly does the "harmonic context" mean?  What would be specific
> examples of contexts where it could make sense to call this set of 
> notes
> Cmadd4, and contexts where it would be better to call it F7sus2/C, 
> etc.?

If you look for examples for harmonic context read i. e. the Real Book 
or some other books about harmonisation. That is music theory and is 
somewhat beyond Lilpond. Such written harmonies most often try to 
describe the skills of a jazz soloist (or a great composer) and map it 
to a sheet of paper. In "classical" music harmonies are not so present 
in the names but more or less hidden in the notes of the orchestral core 
- may be I am wrong?.

> If we are hoping to teach a computer program, i.e. LilyPond, to assign
> correct names to chords, then we have to really say what the
> considerations are that lead one name to be correct over another.

I tried to make clear that there is not just a single correct name for a 
chord. That is only true for the simplest chords of our simple original 
folk music. If one "colours" that up you get the bright colourful 
variety of skilled music that began with the development of orchestral 
events outside the churches and cathedrals and in the brothels of New 
Orleans.

> I'd like to think it could be as simple as looking at the current key
> signature for a clue, but I realize that's only likely to actually give
> the right results in limited cases, and to highlight whatever errors
> remain.  Maybe a smarter solution could involve a language model 
> (hidden
> Markov, context-free grammar, etc.) that could assign a likelihood to 
> each
> chord name for a set of notes depending on the ones before and after it 
> -
> like the standard techniques for determining which words in a sentence 
> are
> nouns and verbs and so on, even though any single word may be 
> ambiguous.

AFAK there are some programs that make/support compositions. In my 
opinion that's the field of artificial intelligence and beyond just have 
a nice sheet of music.

> It sure would be useful if there were a system of descriptive names for
> sonorities *in isolation* that could be understood as giving a single 
> name
> to the set of notes not commenting on anything else except which notes 
> are
> and are not present, but I realize that's not the information
> conventional chord names are intended to convey.
>
> _______________________________________________
> lilypond-user mailing list
> address@hidden
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user