Re: Lilypond and Jazz chords

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi David,

> The engraver would convert <c d f bf> into something akin to c c' d' f'
> bf' (somewhat opaque example since the first is the root pitch and the
> others are the relation to the root note, expressed as intervals from
> c').  There would be one or several markups for interpreting the c' d'
> f' bf' part of the list.  And likely some exceptions mechanism.

I personally think like an input like

  <d f bf>/c  ==>  Bb/C or Bb(6/3)/C or etc.
  <c d f bf>  ==>  C7(sus2,4) or etc.

would be a huge help (at least to me). Wouldn’t have to be exactly like that, 
of course… but should be a clear and easy way to explicitly separate the 
chord(s), inversion(s), and root(s) into bits to be reassembled into a name 
later.

> But it would be quite clear how to assemble one's own solution
> from scratch and what building blocks were available for it.

That would ultimately be the most important thing.

> The current situation also offers "from scratch" assembly, but there are
> basically no useful building blocks or recognizable mechanisms.

+1

> It's a feature rather than a bug that LilyPond tries to avoid passing
> information via anything but the chord pitches: that way you can get
> sensible labelling of chords not entered via chordmode.  This is not
> complete: some special properties come into play in order to allow for
> inversions to be labelled relative to the purported root note rather
> than the nominally lowest note.

Correct.

Best,
Kieren.
________________________________

Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: address@hidden