Re: Chords and what they mean

[David Kastrup]

Brett Duncan <address@hidden> writes:

> On 21/09/15 7:48 AM, Flaming Hakama by Elaine wrote:
>> Modifying the input syntax such that c:5 means <c g> seems ill-advised.
>
> I was thinking much the same, until I read something that David
> Kastrup wrote:
>> I think it is not an outlandish expectation, once you see how a:maj and
>> a:dim and a:min work, to have c:sus turn out a recognizable suspended
>> chord rather than a power chord (which is anything but a suspended
>> chord).  It's not hard to learn c:sus4 for sure.  But anything that
>> works according to naive expectations without causing other problems
>> leaves more time to learn more important things.
>
> Given that sus and power chords are fairly commonly used, removing a
> potential stumbling block for the 'naive' user does not seem
> unreasonable.
>
> This does raise the question of other "naive" constructions. I have
> seen on some contemporary music charts notations like C2 and C4, which
> apparently meant Cadd2 and Cadd4 respectively (except in one case,
> where Cadd4 did not sound right, and only after hearing a recording
> did it become clear that the chord was a Csus4).
>
> Currently, LP's \chordmode interprets c:2 to be the chord <c d>, and
> outputs a chord name of Csus2. It interprets c:4 as <c e f> and
> outputs a chord name of C4 sus4 3 (!)
>
> But to what extent should the the "naive" user be catered for?

It's really a case of diminuishing returns.  The change for x:5 is
definitely affecting the logic of LilyPond, but arguably that can of
worms has been opened with x:13 already.  x:5 is more important, but
it's also a lot more likely to be used as basic building block, like in
x:5.8.  About x:5, I definitely feel ambiguous.  In contrast, x:sus does
not have all that much logic hinging on it: it's previous behavior is
really "cute" in a programmer's sense of the word more than anything
else.  Other modifiers also introduce "personalized" behavior (cf
c:dim7) and people are unlikely to have used it much, exactly because
x:sus is musically not anything suggesting a powerchord.

Maybe x:1.5 is tolerable enough.  At any rate, the proposed x:5 is quite
analogous to the existing x:13.  Your proposals for c:4 and c:2 would
require opening yet another scheme while the chords already have a
musically sound name x:sus4 (now also x:sus) and x:sus2.  So the
threshold for x:2 and x:4 seems yet higher than that for x:5.

-- 
David Kastrup