Re: Chords and what they mean

[David Kastrup]

Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi Blöchl (et al.),
>
> I agree that it would be interesting to know whether/how one can
> redefine the input such that (e.g.) c:5 gives <c g> (or <c bf> or
> whatever one wants) rather than <c e g> (current implementation).
>
> However, modulo a language/communication barrier, I’d like to answer
> your other impliciit questions:
>
>> What should happen with a chord without a 3? A powerchord. […] What else?
>
> I would expect c:sus to give <c f g>, equivalent to c:sus4.
>
>> The question why c:5 only just gets a "normal" c chord instead of a
>> power chord
>
> It’s a good question.
> Certainly, composers (like me) who work in musical theatre write C5 to
> mean <c g>… so it would be nice to enter the same in Lilypond.
>
>> And why to use c^3 instead of c:5. Why c:5 does not work
>
> Analogously, c:6 would be <c a>??
> Hmmm… I don’t think that’s quite right…

We have an exception for c:13 already (it leaves off the 11).  For me
the main question is if c:5 is <c g>, what should c:5- and c:5+ be?  If
we find a satisfactory answer for that (I'm pretty much convinced that
they should stay <c e ges> and <c e gis> respectively and that basically
anything not starting with 5 should also stay the same, like c:m5 or
c:dim5 or c:sus5), it should not be hard to implement this input
exception.

I also don't see a point in needing a \powerchords command or similar in
order to have <c g> be output as C5 rather than C.

-- 
David Kastrup