Re: [GLISS] Unifying \chordmode and \notemode

[David Kastrup]

Janek Warchoł <address@hidden> writes:

> On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 4:46 PM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>> I actually remembered one thing that remains worth doing: integrating
>> \chordmode into \notemode.
>>
>> Why would it make sense to have a unified mode?  Being able to combine
>> single notes in the same voice and partly in parallel or succession with
>> full chords makes sense for the piano, the guitar, the accordion, and
>> probably several other instruments.  Having to switch modes or spell out
>> standard chords all the time is an inconvenience.  With all of these
>> instruments, "Um-pah" kind of accompaniments alternating between a
>> single bass note and a chord is rather frequent.  Being able to write
>> those out sequentially would be seriously simplifying things.
>
> That's and interesting idea!
> As for the ':' conflict, we could replace it with & (for chords). [1]

[...]

> [1] we're running out of ASCII characters...  That's a shame ;P

& has no really convincing mnemonic value.  The last time this was
discussed (some years ago I think) it was suggested that ";" looked
almost like ":".  Not exactly an overwhelming reason, but likely beating
"&".  My personal gut feeling is that probably "/", already used for
separating a chord base, could possibly be used for introducing chords.
It is not perfect:

c1/7

can be c followed by 1/7, or it can be a seventh chord on c with the
duration of a whole note.  But c1 already can be pitch c followed by
number 1 or a whole note c.  The difference is that 1/7 is a lexical
unit of its own.  But this probably could be made to work.

-- 
David Kastrup