Hi Ivan, >> How is it "wrong" for the chord <c e g a> to [additionally] >> include the information 'root = a'? > > In some instances the root could be C and the A would be a passing tone. > In other instances, calling any of those four tones a root would > have no meaning. It would depend on the context.
Correct. > As I read through this thread though, the sense I get is that > "chord semantics" are to be additional information optional > added by the user, so that my fear of lilypond doing ad-hoc > amateur musical analysis will not be happening (I hope not). I believe the intention — at least initially — is, as you say, to only have user-added semantics. However, once a structure is in place to store and respond to such semantic information, there is nothing to stop someone from trying to program Lilypond to do "ad-hoc amateur musical analysis". And I hope they *do* (though I may never use it myself). Certainly, with additional semantic information, any analysis Lilypond attempts can only be better than it would be currently (without such semantic information). > I would hate to see parts of lilypond break because of the addition of > musical analysis. Well, I believe we're all on the same page there: Charles has been engaged specifically to *improve* the chord system, not break it. ;) > if the idea is for lilypond to do popular/amateur music > analysis (calling every "a e g a" chord an a minor 7 chord > regardless of contexts) Again, with the addition of semantic information, Lilypond will be able to ascertain the context of a chord (and vice versa) without any (or at least with much less) manual/human input — this, in my opinion, can only be a good thing. > that task/goal is going to have > little meaning for most music. I suppose that depends on you (or another user’s) definition of "most"… I have friends who use Lilypond only for their pop music charts and lead sheets — for them, a really good, context-sensitive chord generation and analysis tool would have meaning on literally ALL of their music. Cheers, Kieren. ________________________________ Kieren MacMillan, composer ‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info ‣ email: i...@kierenmacmillan.info _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user