Re: Multiple tensions in Chord Mode

[Louis Guillaume]

On 5/28/12 6:38 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 09:48:29AM -0400, Louis Guillaume wrote:
> > There is, however, one thing that I find impossible, that is, having two
> > of the same tension in the chord symbol expression. There is a single
> > case I can think of and that is having both flat-nine and sharp-nine on
> > a dominant chord. e.g.
> >
> >     In chord mode:
> >
> >       c:7.9-.9+
> >
> >     In regular markup:
> >
> >       <c e g bes des' dis'>
> >
> > Both of these produce a chord symbol AND chord without the flat-nine. It
> > seems to only accommodate one 9th, and uses the last one encountered.
> >
> > Is there a way to do work around this?
> >
> > Louis
>
> Hi, Louis.
>
> If I may start with a bit of humble philosophy, when I see a flat
> 9 especially, I almost always conclude that the tonality will
> include a sharp 9 as well, simply because of the dissonance that
> would result from having the flat 9 competing against an
> unaltered 9.

Not to mention the root, which is smunched up with those!

> Not to say that it could never happen, it just
> strikes me as being rare.  This doesn't necessarily work the
> other way around.  A sharp 9 chord to me would normally imply a
> normal 9 also, unless inspection of the melody or harmony
> suggests a flat 9 would be more appropriate, in which case I'll
> grumble that the arranger should have written a flat 9.

But maybe [s]he doesn't want you anywhere near the flat nine :). At 
least for your part. We are talking chord symbols so there's expected 
interpretation. I think when tensions are explicitly described on a 
part, they are not subject to as much interpretation as if you were 
playing off a lead-sheet.

> In summary, IMHO:
>
> flat 9 = flat 9 and usually sharp 9 also
> sharp 9 = sharp 9 and usually natural 9 (or 2)

I think that's accurate for the most part. Obviously there's a lot of 
interpretation involved with this kind of thing.

> If you want a flat 9 sharp 9 chord, consider using a flat 9 and
> leaving the sharp 9 implied.  This is especially appropriate if
> the key signature implies a sharp 9 (C7 b9 in key of Db, Bb or Ab
> for example)

I see the suggestion you're making, but this is where we diverge from 
the philosophical and get practical!

> IMHO, this situation also arises around flat fifths -- a flat
> fifth would almost always cause me to assume a sharp fifth as
> well.

I'm not so sure about that. Certainly there's no natural 5th (it's been 
explicitly flattened), but the 6th could certainly be natural. Consider 
the mode "c d e f ges a bes".

> C7 b5 often implies a whole-tone scale (c d e ges aes bes
> c).  However, I don't make this assumption about sharp 11 chords.
> I assume that sharp 11 chords are chosen to make the fourth tone
> of the mode be only a half step away from the perfect fifth,
> Lydian-style.

Yes 7,#11 chords are almost certainly Lydian-flat-seven.

> Anyway, having tried my best to talk you out of it, :) I can
> understand your desire to explicitly call out both alterations
> when necessary.  I experimented quite a bit with this and learned
> a lot about the extent of the gap in my knowledge about lilypond
> chordmode and chord naming.
>
> I use jazz-chords.ily instead of pop-chords.ly, but ....
>
> Look in your pop-chords.ly file for a chord defined as
> <c e g bes cis' dis'>     If you find it, comment out that chord
> markup.  If you don't find it, double check for alternate
> enharmonic spellings.  If you still can't find it, perhaps it's
> not in pop-chords.ly.

My pop-chords.ly has been heavily modified! I have the chord in there, 
but without that voicing.

> In my jazz-chords.ily I inserted this instead, with a slight
> spelling difference of des here instead of cis above:
>
>          <c e g bes des' dis'>-\markup\jcRaise{ "7(" \jcFlat "9" \jcSharp "9)" }
>
> For pop-chords.ly, the \jc* functions don't exist, so use this
> in pop-chords.ly:
>
>          <c e g bes des' dis'>-\markup { "7" \chordFlat "9" \chordSharp "9" }
>
> Now the strangest thing that I ran into was that I do not know
> how (and could not find a way) to describe those notes in
> \chordmode.  As your message suggested, it appears that chordmode
> can handle only one alteration per scale degree, and it seems
> that a later alteration overrides any earlier alteration for a given
> scale tone.  Further strangeness arose when I realized that
> spelling the same chord pitches in different order changes the
> way the chord markup is selected.
>
> However, the following snippet produces the correct markup,
> although the inability to use a \chordmode representation of
> those notes may prove to be inconvenient.  I don't have the
> expertise to say whether the fact that identical chord pitches
> (shown as identically engraved chords) specified in a different
> sequence causes the chord naming functions to assign different
> markup to the chord.  Could be seen as a feature by some, I
> suppose.
>
> I hope this helps.  It was an interesting learning experience.

It certainly does, Jim. Thanks for taking the time!

I'll try to get this working this weekend and report back...

Louis