Problem with German chords and double accidentals
First let's understand German note names:
(English) B = (German) H
(English) Bb = (German) B
(English) Bbb = (German) Heses
See here for details: //www.musicians-place.de/harmonielehre/kurs-1/die-vorzeichen.html
There has been a long discussion about what the chord on
(English) Bb = (German) B should be called.
Currently in 2.0 as in 1.3 it's called Bb. Perhaps we can do a vote on this amongst the German users. Note that
Freelinking: Unknown plugin indicator
says Bb, but further down, they talk about a B13 chord, so they also clearly don't know it. After going around in circles, perhaps I'm now in favour of the currently implemented Bb.
Problems do exist with double accidentals. For example (English) Bbb = (German) Heses:
It needs to be entered as Hbb and then shows as Bbb, although all other new chords show in German style, ie. Fis, Es, etc. So in the context where Fis, Es, etc. are used, "Heses" should be "Heses".
When clicked to edit it, it comes back as Bb and from then on, it's broken, since Bb is not a valid input in German mode.
I suggest the following for German mode:
If the user wants (English) B = (German) H, they should enter "H".
If the user wants (English) Bb = (German) B, they should enter "B" (and also get "B" or "Bb").
Maybe "Bb" should also be accepted.
If the user wants (English) Bbb = (German) Heses, they should type "Heses" or "Hbb".
That's the logical extension of entering "F#" or "Fis" to get "Fis".
Another word on double accidentals: F## is called Fisis, Gbb Geses and Abb Asas. There is no Fis# and Gesb. For all the other names, see the article cited at the front.
Comments
Luckily, double flats and double sharps are almost never used in chord symbols, so few people are likely to notice issues here. But I look forward to seeing the discussion here and will see if I can implement whatever people decide is best. BTW, the basic translation of note names happens further upstream than the chord symbols and potentially has other ramifications, but I don't think we *currently* use German note names for anything but chord symbols.
Regarding B versus Bb, as you may have noticed, it is already the case that when you *type* B it is understood as English "Bb", and then rendered as "Bb". So MuseScore already does know that this pitch is normally spelled "B" in German. In the chord symbol rendering function, there are two lines of code to override this and force this note to display as "Bb" even though you have set the German option. It would be my pleasure to remove those two lines of code and make the chord render as "B". But I guess the concern had been raised in the past that Germans familiar with English naming might not know for sure whether "B" in a chart was meant to indicate the German or English "B". Rendering it as "Bb" has the advantage of being unambiguous. But I'm just parroting what someone told me before. Unfortunately, there are actually a lot of subtle differences in how chords are spelled in different regions and different musical cultures within those regions, and it's unlikely we'll be able to support every possible variation.
I agree it would be nice if *typing* "Bb" worked even in German mode. This is unfortunately easier said than done, but might be possible, and if enough people think it's important, I could try.
In reply to Luckily, double flats and by Marc Sabatella
Rendering the German B as Bb was indeed the compromise to avoid confusion with the English B.
In absence of German H, it would otherwise be next to impossible to tell whether German or English chordnames are used.
That's was the story for 1.x. Now in 2.0 it is different, we now render F# as Fis, and Fb as Fes, so there more that distinguishes the English from the German notation, hence less source of confusion.
Not sure whether this is possible, but the ideal thing might be to call Bb a B in German notation if there are other chordnames that indicate German notation, like H, Fis, As, etc. but call it Bb otherwise (i.e. if ambiguity can't get excluded from context). Don't ask me for an algorithm for this though :-)
In reply to Rendering the German B as Bb by Jojo-Schmitz
There really need to be two German modes:
"German international", which is the standard in 1.3 and which is what Wiki describes: C, D♯, G♭, H, B♭.
Basically the only difference to English is that there is a H.
"Pure German", which is what is used when the Germans are amongst themselves ;-)
There we have :
Fis=Ges ,Gis=As, Ais=B, H=Ces, C. As for the double accidentals:
G=Asas=Fisis, A=Heses=Gisis, H=Aisis=Ces.
It makes little sense to mix these two modes, and therefore it makes little sense to have a B♭ show up in a context where Fis, As and Es are used.
In reply to Two seperate variations required by jorgk3
Sounds like a plan
But then again it is the context that matters.
Example, a score with the chords E, A and B7, how to tell whether that B7 is meant to be B(b)7 or H7?
Or real example, 'Killing me softly', Em, Am, D, G, A, C, F, E and B7 (H7)?
Easy if there also is an A#, or Ais, impossible otherwise?
In reply to Sounds like a plan by Jojo-Schmitz
As I said:
"Pure German", which is what is used when the Germans are amongst themselves ;-)
They **know** what a B is meant to be, since they have never seen a B♭ in their lives ;-)
I was given this score to work on:
NOT FOUND: 01
So clearly everyone who sees this will know what to play.
Playing music still involves thinking, it's not idiot proof.
I still think that two distinct modes are necessary. People who want to see H7, won't want to sign up for Fis. Compare:
German international: F#m, H7, E; Fm, B♭7, E♭
Pure German: fis, H7, E (surely Fism makes no sense); f, B, Es.
We observe that in "pure German", the minor chords should automatically be lower case.
If I read this post correctly, there are already two modes: "Legacy mode" and "new mode". All I suggest is to call "legacy mode" "German international" and "new mode" "Pure German" (without the B♭). Both should be available in the user interface. When "Pure German" is selected, the minor chords should be lower case. That could be done by automatically ticking the box. BTW.: "dm" makes no sense, the lower case "d" already implies minor, so please lose the "m".
One other thing:
@Jojo: May I remind you of what you wrote back in 2011 (quote):
H and B (correct German) or H and Bb ("compromise but close enough" German).
So why have a compromise in "pure" mode?
In reply to Pure German is for Germans only by jorgk3
Because you can't always always tell from looking at a score whether it this or that mode.
Anyway, what you says make perfect sense.
In reply to Pure German is for Germans only by jorgk3
BTW, what are those tick signs in the posted image supposed to indicate? I guess they are meant to indicate beats with no chord change? If so, the second and fourth bars confuse me, as they appear to show 5 beats.
As I indicated before, if we were to support every possible variation anyone ever requested directly through the UI, that could get ugly very quickly (see also discussion over whether to capitalize do, re, mi in in solfeggio naming, whether alternate bass notes should be capitalized, etc). The way I set things up, you can actually switch between "legacy / German internation" and "pure German" by editing the appropriate XML files. What if I set it up so the "German" option in the dialog actually was "pure German" mode, but I also provided alternate "legacy / German international" chord description files you could select via the "Custom" option? The implemenation of this would actually be simpler and cleaner, although I realize it might be more of a pain if a lot of people really prefer the "legacy / German international" option.
BTW, regarding lower caswe minor chords - lots of people (maybe not in Germany) do in fact write "dm". But MuseScore supports both. With the minor chords option selection, you can type either, and it will be rendered as typed. There was a bug in the Beta "d" this would not be preserved across save/load (it got turned into "D"), but this is fixed in recent builds.
In reply to BTW, what are those tick by Marc Sabatella
Please ignore the ticks. The screen shot is from an old defunct program. The B ' F ' ' is meant to represent this:
NOT FOUND: 01
So the F comes and then two beats follow. Crappy, I know, that's why we're switching this to MuseScore.
As for the two modes: You said that there is "legacy" mode that will behave differently to "new" mode. Isn't that totally confusing since the user needs to know the history of the score?
Personally, I think "pure German" mode is something that will be used very little. Perhaps some small town choir or some church group. IMHO most people will use "German international", if they use German chords at all. So I think making "pure German" the default is a bad choice.
I'd make "pure German" an option that can clearly be selected somehow, but not some automatism for new scores.
Anyway, my 5 cents worth of wisdom.
In reply to Ticks by jorgk3
Whatever happened to this discussion?
Will we see two German modes (international and pure) sometime soon?
Perhaps in the next beta release ... as a Christmas present ;-)
In reply to Whatever happened to this by jorgk3
The current default for the German option appears to be the one that is described as "International" - which is my read of the consensus for what people seemed to want. That is, typing "H" renders as "H", typing "B" renders as "Bb". If you want "pure German", you can created customized copies of the supplied XML files, and we could document how somewhere if anyone cares. But it kind of sounded like no one really did.
In reply to The current default for the by Marc Sabatella
My observations are based on MuseScore 2.0 beta 1:
Sadly what you say is not the case. The current implementation is a mix of "international" and "pure".
I repeat:
English:
F#, Gb, A/B♭♭, B♭, B
German International:
F#, Gb, A/B♭♭, B♭, H
German Pure:
Fis, Ges, A/Heses, B, H.
Current implementation:
Fis, Ges, A/B♭♭, B♭, H.
There is also a problem with the B♭♭:
B♭♭ needs to be entered as Hbb, fair enough.
As stated in my very first comment (20 Sept. 2014):
===
When clicked to edit it, it comes back as Bb and from then on, it's broken, since Bb is not a valid input in German mode.
===
There are further problems to do with double accidentals:
A♭♭ becomes As♭ and F## becomes Fis#.
Summary based on 2.0 beta 1:
Inconsistent mix of "international" and "pure" mode, particularly terrible when using double accidentals.
Problem with editing B♭♭.
In reply to My observations are based on by jorgk3
Sorry, there have been so many posts on the subject over the years it is hard to keep them all straight!
First, there have been many changes since Beta 1; you should generally check with a current Nightly. But I don't think there is anything relevant different in this particular case.
In my response above I was thinking only of the Bb / H spelling, and my impression is that this *is* as virtually everyone who has expressed an opinion seems to want things go work by default.
You personally seem to be OK with that, but I gather you also want Db instead of Des. And yet there are others who *also* want the "international" spelling Bb / H note spellings but who prefer Des. So I don't think it is clear right now that there is even a consensus on what "German international" as a default actually means.
As I have said, if you want to see Db / D# instead of Des / Dis, that's an easy change to the XML file you can make yourself. And if I change the default to Db / D#, it will be equally easy for those so inclined to change it back.
But right now, I don't really see any sort of consensus on which actually makes more sense as the default. A couple of years ago, the consensus appeared to be for es/is. I could use more data to help me see if that decision was wrong and should be revisited. Actual published examples would be nice to see.
As I said, given the almost infinite variety of personal preferences that come into play, I can't really see adding separate radio buttons for all of them. I would like to have one "German" option reachable via the UI, with variations possible by customization of XML files. We just need to agree on what this one German option should actually do. I have no horse in this race and am willing to implement whatever I perceive as the consensus - I guess I am still waiting to hear more opinions.
As for the double flat / double sharp issue - I guess that's a bug, more or less separate from any of these other discussions. You should file that to the issue tracker.
In reply to Sorry, there have been so by Marc Sabatella
I'd agree that
Current implementation:
Fis, Ges, A/B♭♭, B♭, H.
doesn't really maker sense.
B♭, is a good enough compromise, when using e.g. F#, but not any longer when used together with e.g. Fis.
So I'd support jork3's request for 'pure german' and an 'international German' mode
In reply to I'd agree that Current by Jojo-Schmitz
Hi Marc,
frankly, I find your answer a little disappointing.
In this post
Posted by Marc Sabatella on September 20, 2014 - 9:47pm
you actually offered to make some changes.
Currently (I checked the nightly) we have:
1) Fis, Ges, A/B♭♭, B♭, H - which also according to Jojo doesn't make much sense.
2) Fis# and Des♭ - which makes absolutely no sense
3) a bug with B♭♭
This is not an acceptable solution and not an improvement compared with 1.3.
Bug raised as requested: #40066: Use "b" and "#" rather than "es" and "Is" by default for German chords
In reply to Hi Marc, frankly, I find your by jorgk3
No need to be disappointed! I offered to make changes, and that offer remains! I was just waiting for some sort fo consensus to emerge out of all the conflicting requests. It seems now that at least 2 people agree I should revert "es" and "is" to "b" and "#" by default, so I will do that.
As mentioned, bad handling of double flat and double shapr is a totally separate bug - doesn't just affect German (although of course it looks worse there because of the mismatch. I will file that separately.
In reply to No need to be disappointed! by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc, I think we **had** reached a consensus and the end of our discussion back in September. I was waiting for some action and when I received the announcement of "beta 2", I thought it was time to follow up.
I think supporting the "is" and "es" endings is great as and additional feature ("pure" German) and it should be clearly documented how to achieve this. I recently worked on some German church songs and my client wanted "pure" German (fis (minor), Ges, B, H). I told him that that will be possible in a forthcoming release.
I think what you suggested in September makes sense, but it should be the other way around:
"International"/legacy as the default and "pure" available via a custom option if you don't want to make it a check-box.
===
What if I set it up so the "German" option in the dialog actually was "pure German" mode, but I also provided alternate "legacy / German international" chord description files you could select via the "Custom" option? The implementation of this would actually be simpler and cleaner, although I realize it might be more of a pain if a lot of people really prefer the "legacy / German international" option.
===
In reply to Hi Marc, I think we **had** by jorgk3
FWIW, when I wrote "what if I..." - what I was hping for was >1 response yes "yes please do that". I now have that, so thanks for resurrecting this.
In reply to FWIW, when I wrote "what if by Marc Sabatella
OK, you win ;-) Now without further ado, let's have it, please.
As most people following this thread probably realize, I did implement this the other day,
However, the amount of special casing required to get it working well without introducing a new top level "pure German" option is making me more uncomfortable than just adding the new top level option. I'm still a bit leery of this, as I suspect this opens the door to a zillion other special requests (Norwegian spelling, capital versus lower case and use of accent in solfeggio, etc, etc).
But let's say for the sake of argument I'm open to exposing "pure German" mode. I have a question. Right now, because someone once requested and/or because some other program does this, we have alternate bass notes display in lower case for German. Is that *really* desired? Or maybe it's more desired for "pure German" than for "German internation"? Also, I don't suppose there is a good correlation between pure versus international German and use of lower case minor chords - like the international users would not want that option on but pure users would? I ask because I have a semi-desperate hope that I can avoid adding new buttons but instead consider German (alone) to mean international, but make it so also checking lower case minor chords automatically turns it into pure German, including the use of lower case alternate bass notes. I realize this is probably wishful thinking.
In reply to As most people following this by Marc Sabatella
I am by no means authoritative on this, but I find the lower case bass notes strange, as far as I've seen lower case is only used for minor chords
In reply to As most people following this by Marc Sabatella
I think, German international should look like this:
F♯, G♭, A/H♭♭, B♭, H, minor: F♯m, G♭m, Am, B♭m7, Hm7
Pure mode should be:
Fis, Ges, A/Heses, B, H, minor: fis, ges, a, b7, h7
II-V7-I in C is d, G7, C (no idea how they write C major, perhaps Cmaj).
So yes, I see the correlation: International: all upper, "m" indicator.
Pure: minor goes lower, no "m" (you just don't type it in as I learned).
I wasn't aware that the base notes in slash chords are spelled lower case. I would say that this is wrong in German international. Reminder: German international is almost like English with only one exception, the "H". Take a look at this Wikipedia article, //de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-Akkord . No lower case there.
So if anything, alternate bass notes should only be lower case in pure mode. I'm going to do a little survey among my German musician friends and post the result here later.
In reply to I think, German international by jorgk3
I would expect there is as little agreement among Germans regarding how to abbreviate major or minor as there is among Americans - which is to say, almost no agreement whatsoever. Let's remove talk about major and minor abbreviations from consideration, because that's already handled by a totally separate area of the parser. And it is intended to by WYWIWYG, so we don't *have* to agree. The options we are discussing have only to do with the spelling of the root and bass notes themselves, not anything that comes afterwards.
FWIW, our original model of how things should look comes from LilyPond:
http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.19/Documentation/notation/displaying-chords#…
You'll note they provide two different German modes, but neither are exact matches for anything we are discussing. Finale and Sibelius provide different options still. Which is why I fear eventually this could explode into a gazillion different options - clearly, there are a whole lot of different standards out there.
BTW, unless I'm missing something, the Wikipedia article you cite might be *written* in German, butit's not about German chords at all. G/B, Am, etc.
In reply to I would expect there is as by Marc Sabatella
Well, I'm not convinced that the LiliPond versions make so much sense:
Their "german" is what we discusses as "pure" German, only that they put H#/his and we put His/his.
Their "semi-german" makes little sense to me: B♭/b, come on, either the note is either called B♭ or B/b, not both.
So to me, this scheme makes more sense:
International: uppercase base notes, pure: lower case base notes.
In the meantime I've looked through the German sheets I have in the collection, which is 0.01%. The all use international notation, I didn't see any slash chords. I asked my piano teacher, a guy who is experienced in pop and jazz. He's never seen lower case base notes.
Starting with today's builds, you should find that when in "German" mode, the "lower case minor chord" option flips you between "pure" and "international" sub-modes. It's still not 1005 decided that this will be the mechanism, but for now, it works as we have been discussion, and custom XML files are no longer required.
So, for German mode with lower case minor chords *off*, you get H, Bb, Ab/Eb, G#m/D#, Ebb
For German mode with lower case minor chords *on*, you get H, B, As/es, gis/dis, Eses
In both cases, you can type your accidentals either way; it gets converted automatically. Also as far as I know, I get the spelling of double flats correct: Asas, Eses, Geses. But again, you can actually type any of these and be understood - it gets converted automatically.
In reply to Starting with today's builds, by Marc Sabatella
I looked at this build: 2014-12-06-1734-e76f2c7
Pure German and German international look good now (#40066: Use "b" and "#" rather than "es" and "Is" by default for German chords and #40091: Double flat / double sharp not treated correctly in chord symbols). Equally the funny "=" signs have disappeared (#40356: Place holders for minor chords show up in the rendered score.).
I really like the facility to switch between the different modes and the representation changes. Also I don't see the "isis" any more, when editing in German international mode, perfect. There is one drawback: If you had lower case minor chords and switch that option off, the letters are now uppercase, but there is no indication that the chord is minor. Shouldn't it switch back to "standard minor representation"?
So the functionality is top, I'm not so convinced of the UI, that is, pinning it to the "lower case minor option", although of course, this coupling is legal and sufficient, just not that obvious.
Sadly a new bug has crept in:
Chord symbols are not transposed any more:
Create a new score, add note G with chord G, transpose. Note is transposed, chord is not.
In reply to I looked at this build: by jorgk3
How are you doing the transpose? It works for me with Notes / Transpose, selecting either key or interval and making sure the option to transpose chord symbols is selected. It also works to enter a chord symbol on a staff for a transposing instrument and then press Concert Pitch. What specifically is *not* working for you?
As for the UI, let's wait a minute to get more feedback on whether this actually meets expectations. Then if so, I'll add another button.
In reply to How are you doing the by Marc Sabatella
See image, result was copied in (in GIMP!) with red frame. As I said: New score, G, chord G, transpose, nothing happens. I tried "by key" (D major, up a second), "by interval" (up a (major) second) and "diatonically" (up a second). Build e76f2c7.
NOT FOUND: 01
In reply to See image, result was copied by jorgk3
I can now reproduce the transpose issue. Not sure why I couldn't before. This workeduntil recently, I must have inadvertently broken it with the most recent changes.
In reply to I can now reproduce the by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for looking into it!
In the last "nightly" I tried, (Nov. 30, sorry, I didn't write the version down) it worked fine.
In reply to Thanks for looking into by jorgk3
see #40941: Chord symbols don't transpose with Notes / Transpose
In reply to How are you doing the by Marc Sabatella
In reply to:
As for the UI, let's wait a minute to get more feedback on whether this actually meets expectations. Then if so, I'll add another button.
German users, please step forward!
I think the German international and pure German options work well now. The only drawback is that the pure option is coupled with the lower case minor chords. I could well imagine that some German users would want German international, but with lower case minor chords, as in: d-7, G7, CΔ7.
So to make the implementation perfect, I suggest this user interface:
NOT FOUND: 01
In reply to In reply to: As for the UI, by jorgk3
lower case minor chords is coupled with lower case bass notes, isn't it? I don't think it should?
In reply to lower case minor chords is by Jojo-Schmitz
Of course it would be better if all elements (spelling, lower case minor, lower case bass) could be combined independently.
In reply to Of course it would be better by jorgk3
OK, you win :-).
Here is how that portion of the dialog looks as of the current build:
"Full German" is now a top-level option alongside "German" and "Solfeggio" - plus a new "French" option that is like Solfeggio but with "Ré" instead of "Re". BTW, as has been the case for some time, tooltips appear when you hover over these options to help you understand what they do.
"Lower case bass notes" is also now a separate checkbox, and there is a new "All caps note names" option that will be of interest to some people using Solfeggio or French spelling ("DO" instead of "Do").
I think this covers just about every note spelling request I've heard over the past few years. The French and all caps spellngs were previously possible by editing your chord definition file, but I'm trying to make that as rare as I reasonably can.
Please, help test! FWIW, I discovered while working on this that "Sol" was not actually working for Solfeggio spelling - it would be treated as unrecognized. That means it would still display, but without all the special magic that applies to recognized chord symbols (conversion of b/# to flat/sharp, transposition, etc). That's fixed now too. But it underscores the fact that this code hasn't gotten as much real-world stress testing as I'd like.
In reply to OK, you win :-). Here is how by Marc Sabatella
Great stuff, Marc. The entire user community will win.
I noticed one glitch:
When you have lower case minor chords and lower case base notes and switch from standard chords to jazz chords, all chords go lower case. If you save the score and open it again, the upper case chords reappear. That's my five minutes worth of testing. I'll bash it some more in the next few days.
In reply to Great stuff, Marc. The entire by jorgk3
Thanks, I can confirm that bug and some variations with same symptom - all chords appear lower case at first after certain option changes, reverting to normal after save/reload. Looking into it. Saw something like this once while working on this but then not again, and I was hoping I had fixed it.
In reply to Great stuff, Marc. The entire by jorgk3
Glitch with switching between standard / jazz / custom rendering with the lower case minor chord option checked is fixed. BTW, that wasn't new with my recent changes either - it was that way in Beta, and it's probably been broken since the day I added the lower case minor chords option in the first place. Just the specific sequence of operations needed to trigger it may have shifted over time.
Since at this point I think the functionality and UI are all in place, it makes sense to start new threads and/or use the issue tracker as necessary for whatever else may come up regarding the current implementation.
In reply to Glitch with switching between by Marc Sabatella
Thank you, Marc!
One last question. You wrote:
I discovered while working on this that "Sol" was not actually working for Solfeggio spelling - it would be treated as unrecognized. That means it would still display, but without all the special magic that applies to recognized chord symbols (conversion of b/# to flat/sharp, transposition, etc). That's fixed now too.
How does one recognise that a chord spelling is not recognised, since it still displays? I usually do a transposition to see whether all the chords are transposed, but is there a simpler way?
In reply to Thank you, Marc! One last by jorgk3
In the 'normal' modes (not using any of the lowercase options) my old trick from 1.x still works: enter every chord name in all lower case, if it turns into upper case automagically, it got detected as a valid chord symbol, it is stays lower case it did not get recognized.
In reply to In the 'normal' modes (not by Jojo-Schmitz
Yes, that works when not using the lower case minor option. My clue in this this case is as that it didn't respond to the new "All caps" option. Other clues could be an alternate bass note not being offset vertically, or a typed b/# not converting into flat/sharp (either in root name as in Sol# or in an alteration as in Sol7b9).
In reply to I looked at this build: by jorgk3
Oh, and as for minor chords changing their spelling: that's not really how this works. The spelling of the *extension* portion of the chord is never affected by any of these options. Whether roots are capital or lower, German or Italian or English, the remainder of the chord is WYSIWYG. If you typed your minor chords using the lwoer case option with no "m", then change your mind and switch that option off, your chords are now capitalized, and you will have to decide for yourself how you want them spelled. There is no "standard minor representation"; MuseScore has no way of knowing if you want "m", "mi", "min", or "-". You'll have to make that choice and type it in yourself. WYSIWYG is a good thing, but it does cut both ways.
In reply to Oh, and as for minor chords by Marc Sabatella
Frankly, I was never a great friend of WYSIWYG. I was always a friend of enforcing a standard. I quote from a personal e-mail you sent me on May 14th, 2013:
What I am talking about now is some additional new work that will provide an *alternative* for those who don't want to be boxed in to having their chords look a certain way but want them to look as they typed. I call it WYSIWYG for lack of a better term, the idea being you get what you ask for. Of course, you wouldn't expect anyone to *deliberately* mix and match styles. It's not about encouraging that, but rather, about making it easy for people to get what they want without mucking about with ENTITY statements in XML files. If they do decide they want to be forced into one particular style and have everything they type automatically "corrected", they can get that simply by selecting one of the existing chord description files.
So my proposal is, we'd use this new WYSIWYG style by default - allowing people a comfortable first experience with chord symbols in MuseScore. Then if they decide they wish to have a "controlled vocabulary" of chord symbols that everything is automatically coereced into, and there happens to be a chord description file that provides that style, they can load it. Eventually, I want to provide a utility to allow users to easily generate their own chord description files just by giving very basic info about what abbreviations they want to use for major and minor, how much superscripting of alterations they want, etc.
So obviously given what you say you'd want to use one of the existing chord description files, and you'd be welcome to set MuseScore to do so. But since only you know which style you want to be coerced into using, I think it is those like you (or me, frankly) who *want* to be coerced to have to explicitly choose *how* we want to be coerced.
Later that day, you wrote on the mailing list
And yes, once it is all working, I would advocate making this new WYSIWYG chord description file the default. My thinking being, newcomers will be most comfortable being able to type what they want right off the bat, so they will appreciate this. It's the more savvy users who will see the benefit of being "coerced" into having their chords rendered consistently, but only the user himself would know which of the existing chord description styles he wants coerce himself into using, so it is these users who should need to explicitly make that happen.
So how do you switch the "coercion" back on?
Revisiting every minor chord in the score to add or remove the minor chord ending just because you switch from German to English or vice versa can't be the idea.
Further on "coercion": In 1.3 I used to work like this: I switched to "jazzchords.xml", then entered my chords. When I typed "Am" the system gave me "A" followed by a small "MI". If I typed, "Ami" the system didn't recognise it. Everything not recognised was therefore, let's say, wrongly entered, because it didn't fall into what was pre-defined.
I've just tried in version 2. Here "A" followed by a small "MI" and "Am" coexist happily, equally, "A" followed by a small "MA" and "Amaj". How can I turn this off as was promised initially? I want the system to make sure that any "mistakes" I make during chord entry get detected, perhaps even corrected.
In reply to Frankly, I was never a great by jorgk3
You can get MuseScore to "coerce" chords the same way as in 1.3 - by making sure the chord definition file you use has a hard-coded list of chords. See the bottom of chords_std.xml or chords_jazz.xml. Basically, you just want a list of "name" tags, no "id" or "render" necessary.
In reply to You can get MuseScore to by Marc Sabatella
Sorry, I am confused.
I looked in chords_std.xml or chords_jazz.xml. Both have the same "Part III" comment. In the jazz version, there is some content for 6/9 or 6,9 chords. Boy, this stuff is cryptic, who's going to understand: "m:1:-2 s6 m:-2.5:0 s/ m:-2:7 s9 m:0:-5"?
I looked at the jazzchords.xml from version 1.3, but that's completely different.
So, in absence of anything pre-canned to reproduce 1.3 behaviour, I added this to chords_jazz.xml:
<chord><name>Mi</name></chord>.
Lo and behold, regardless of whether I type Ami, Amin, Am or A-, I get this:
NOT FOUND: 01
Seems like it recognises all the different ways to enter A minor and it forces everything to "AMi". Well, I'd like the thing to behave like it always has, a nice "A" followed by a small "Mi".
Also, it would be great if a "Jazz Chords pre-canned as 1.3" could be provided to the community, so that not everyone who wants to enforce consistent spelling needs to invent their own.
Maybe this post should be in a different thread, since it no longer concerns the "German" chords.
I found this:
New flexible chord symbol entry and rendering
There is talk of two modes. The first one is old-style-1.3-coerced mode, the second is WYSIWYG. So if there are supposedly two modes, then both of them should be easily available to the user. Telling them that they need to edit XML to get the behaviour they've been using for years is not a good approach IMHO. Also, as outlined above, it's not clear how.
In reply to Sorry, I am confused. I by jorgk3
The stuff is cryptic because it is not meant for ordinary users. Msot people should be perfectly happy with WYSIWYG. The vast majority will see this a an enormous improvement over 1.3 - in fact, for people creating lead sheets, I dare say it will be the single most significant improvement there is. Only a very few will want to take the trouble to design their own limited vocabulary and ask MsueScore to force them to live within it. Eventually, we may add a GUI to make it easier to do this from within MuseScore, but for now, it's for the advanced users only. But as I said, the render tags are unneeded. All you should have is a list of name tags, just as you created.
You are welcome to use the old XML files if you porefer to be limited in the ways you were always limited in 1.3. They are still provided as part of the 2.0 distribution.
BTW, not sure what you mean about "nice A followed by small Mi". There has never been a small "Mi". There is a small "mi", a special precomposed glyph provided only in the MuseJazz font. You'd get that if you specified you wanted "mi" as your conanical minor chord, rather than "Mi".
In reply to The stuff is cryptic because by Marc Sabatella
Hey, in absence of any instructions, I got it wrong ;-(
Now I added:
<chord><name>mi</name></chord>
<chord><name>ma</name></chord>
That looks much better already.
Can I repeat my request:
A set of XML to add to get near old-style behaviour.
The mi/ma stuff already covers a lot.
How do you restrict diminished to "o" (I noticed that you need to type lower case o, not 0 (zero)) and disallow "dim"? And how do disallow Ø7 and map that to mi7b5 instead? I don't understand the comment in the XML that talks about mi7b5 and 07 (zero seven).
Is there a list of pre-canned names, like "mi" and "ma" that do special things? Like map to a single special character in the MuseJazz font?
We also used to have a 7alt chord, with the "alt" as a superscript. Now it's put at the baseline.
mi(ma7) chords look different to what they used to look, before the had the parenthesis, now the "Ma7" goes as a superscript (with or without parenthesis). That's a change.
P.S.: Is the old jazzchords.xml really still supported? Is it a good idea to use it? Wouldn't it be better to tweak the new system to be a little more like the old while having more liberties?
In reply to Hey, in absence of any by jorgk3
I think at this point a new thread does make more sense. Be sure to specify which XML file(s) you are asking about. The details of how they do things obviously differs - that's the whole point of different files.
In reply to I think at this point a new by Marc Sabatella
Moved the discussion over here:
WYSIWYG chords in MuseScore 2.0 and how to tweak it, to be more like 1.3