Chords, notation and voicings
I wrote a Chord chart (dico_std.mscz) according to styles/chords.xml. I have some doubts about the voicing... I join a copy of chords.xml (accords.xml) : my remarks about voicings is "xml" commented.
In dico_std.mscz I introduced rested measures to keep in parallel the chord id with the number of the measure...
(Is there any meaning in the chord id and in the ids order ?)
By the way some voicings seam quite odd like "C E G Bb D F" (the minor ninth E F is "hard").
(the sound on violins smothes hard voicings...)
Thanks for your ideas about chords.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| accords.xml | 31.46 KB |
| dico_std.mscz | 4.32 KB |
Comments
The chord id's were apparently chosen based on those used in the popular program "Band in a Box". New ones added at the end of the file are not accordingly to any particular plan; I know this because I added some of them :-)
As for chord voicings, there is little standardization, but indeed, a C11 chord played as C E G Bb D F would be rather dissonant and inappropriate in most musical contexts. So most human players would choose to omit the third. Thelonious Monk would have no problems with it, though! It seems the XML "voicing" generated by MuseScore is not meant to be an actual usable piano voicing; just a representation of the pitches that define the chord.
Some of your comments seem accurate - a C augmented chord should indeed have G#, not Ab. But C13 should not have an F# unless it says C13#11. At least, that's how chord symbols are typically used, in the US anyhow. As I said, there is no real standardization. It's certainly true that most human players would choose to raise the eleventh if they were to play it at all. Similar story with several of your other comments - what you write is indeed what most human players would do when interpreting the chord, but that doesn't alter the *definition* of the chord. I don't know enough about MusicXML to know if it is supposed to contain a typical voicing as a human player might create in a given style or if it is meant to be just the literal definition, but MuseScore definitely seems to be using the latter.
In reply to The chord id's were by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for your interresting comments... I feel a bit sad about C13 because the F# seems implicit as the 11th harmony and the most used in 13th chords ;-)
I'll change my inhabits...
Obviously the xml voicing looks like a comment.
In reply to Thanks for your interresting by lholivier
These things do vary from country to country and from genre to genre, but in my world (US-based jazz musician), C13 definitely does not by itself suggest that one should pllay a #11. You would have to write C13#11 if you wanted that. it is true that most US based jazz musicians not named Thelonious Monk would choose to omoit the 11th if they saw C13. But then, they'd also probably omit the C and G.
In reply to These things do vary from by Marc Sabatella
Musescore could become the good way to standardisation... But some uncertainity remains interresting. I remember a pianist who told me that, playing some new manuscripts from Ravel, she asked him about accidentals to play or not (context of the left an the right hand)... "Play what you'd rather, I don't already know." said Ravel :)