Re: Mixed chord/note mode

[David Kastrup]

Aaron Hill <lilypond@hillvisions.com> writes:

> On 2022-08-22 6:12 am, Lukas-Fabian Moser wrote:
>> I think it would be a considerable gain in heavy-handedness if I would
>> have to do
>> <f:maj7>1*2 <g:7> <g:m7>1 <ges:7>1 <f:maj7> <ges:7>
>> instead of
>> f1*2:maj7 g:7 g1:m7 ges1:7 f1:maj7 ges1:7
>
> Not to sound contrarian, but I would very much welcome the former
> syntax.
>
> While I have used LilyPond since 2.10.33 and am quite used to the
> existing chord-mode form, I am nevertheless irked by the need to
> sandwich the duration between the chord root and its modifiers.  I
> have to make a strong mental effort to pronounce the chord in my head
> as "D, for a half note, minor seventh" in order to successfully type
> "d2:m7".
>
> If we borrowed the chord syntax from note-mode, it would mean when
> typing "<d:m7>2" I could think "D minor seventh, for a half note"
> which feels much more natural.

Well, since <...> allows to group/stack chords and single notes, I'd
rather want it more octave-preserving than chordmode in order to provide
reasonably consistent and predictable behavior.  Also it would appear
like a bad idea to mix chordmode's absolute behavior with \relative
notation for single notes.  So the two forms would end up not quite
interchangeable.  At the same time, it is noteworthy that <...> already
has a meaning in \chordmode, namely allowing to create chords explicitly
(more often than not containing a single note, I'd guess).  It would
make some sense to make <...> exhibit the same behavior in chordmode and
in notemode, but I am somewhat fuzzy about that.

-- 
David Kastrup