Re: Chords and what they mean

[Brett Duncan]

On 19/09/15 8:49 AM, Kaj Persson wrote:
> As you wrote Csus ought to mean that the first third is removed, and 
> nothing else. Among professional musicians, which I am not, but I have 
> friends who are, this is not the whole truth, there exists a de facto 
> standard which does not exactly coincide with the pure logical.
Not exactly - there are several conventions used by musicians, with a 
wide range of similarities and differences, but there is no one 
standard, de facto or otherwise.

> Csus is one example, C5 another. So when I work with these people i 
> will use their methods and system, not trying to introduce something 
> else (more "clever"). Therefore it would be fine if one could adapt LP 
> to the current situation.
Well, in this instance that might seem reasonable, where we are only 
talking about simple chords, but where the chords are more complex or 
follow some other convention, adapting LP might prove a lot more 
difficult. For example, a lot of jazz charts follow a widely used 
convention where minor chords are denoted with a minus sign and 
augmented chords are denoted with a plus sign, i.e.  F-7, G+. But LP 
uses these symbols in \chordmode for alterations.

But this all just points to the fact that there is a distinction between 
how chords are entered and how they are displayed. And given that the 
same chord can be displayed several different ways, that distinction 
cannot really be avoided. For my own purposes, the default chord names 
generated by LP are far from ideal, so like many I have a separate file 
of chord exceptions that I include when I need it. So long as the input 
method allows me to create the chords I need in a reasonably way and I 
can get the output to appear as I need it to, there is no need to make 
the input take the same form as the output.

Brett