>
>
> > Folks,
> >
> >
> > I seek advice from Jazz music theory experts. Consider the following
> > input and the attached image.
> >
> > ```
> > music = {
> > <c d e f g>
> > <c d e g>
> > }
> >
> > <<
> > \new ChordNames \music
> > \new Staff \transpose c c' \music
> >>>
> > ```
> >
> > The output looks strange to me. Shouldn't this be rather the
> > following?
> >
> > Csus4 sus2 add3 → Cadd2 add4
> > Csus2 add3 → Cadd2
> >
> > Even from a musicological point of view the current LilyPond rendering
> > seems to be wrong, because these two chords don't have 'suspended'
> > notes at all – the 'target' notes the suspensions should lead to are
> > already present.
>
> > <c e g d' f'> should, according to nomenclature, be named "C add9
> > add11", but is a poorly-formed chord in that it contains a minor 9th
> > between the e and the f'. These minor 9ths are usually resolved by
> > inversion to a major 7th, yielding <c f g d' e'>, which should be
> > named "C sus4 add9 add10".
> >
> > <c e g d'> is properly called "C add9".
>
> LilyPond does that. It's the border cases I'm worrying about.
>
I agree with Werner that <c d e f g> should not be any kind of sus chord
since it contains the 3rd
This is not actually a jazz theory question, since in jazz usage chords are
not intended to indicate specific voicings. If you wanted specifically
this voicing, you would write on the staff, not as a chord symbol.
If you want to come up with a coherent way to name it, that's fine. But
that is more of an analysis question than a jazz theory question since this
is not the kind of information that chord symbols convey in a jazz chart.
This particular cluster has likely never been written in a jazz chart as a
chord symbol. It certainly does not exist in any of the many volumes of
the original real book or the legal Sher versions.
Rather, the purpose of chord symbols in jazz charts is to provide
guidelines, so people can pick appropriate notes when improvising. In many
cases, this is the same as just writing the chord symbol that exactly
matches the notes. However, even in these cases, there is an understanding
that this is not limiting the possible choice of notes, but providing the
basis. Jazz players generally pick scales that can be used over several
chords in a row and then figure out what "mode" to use at various points.
This is why the "add" alteration is not used in jazz very much because
typically once you have the presence of the higher scale degrees like the
9th, some form of the lower degrees are usually palatable, and so it is
helpful to choose a symbol that helps people understand what that might be.
If I see a chord "C add9" when improvising, my first thought is, I want to
harmonize the 9 or even just play a scalar pattern from G to C, should I
use a major 7 or minor 7? Which is to say, is this functioning as a major
chord or dominant chord? Should I be using a major scale or mixolydian?
So, in a jazz chart you would usually just choose either Cmaj9 or C9
instead of "C add9" because you want to illuminate the parent scale.
Which is why, if this were a non-jazz analysis context, I would refer to
the D and F in this cluster as 2 and 4, rather than 9 and 11 since using
the higher numbers implies that you expect some kind of 7th to be present
as well. If you want just the notes in the chord, stick to the smaller
numbers.
So, I would suggest for lilypond default, <c d e f g> would be "C add2
add4".
As to the more general musical question of what kind of chord could you
make from these notes if you change octaves, to me the most stable sound
would be Fmaj13 since F is the most coherent root.
If I were writing a jazz chart and wanted to provide improvisers the best
guidance to improvising over <c d e f g> , I would probably choose the
chord symbol C11. (Of course, I would not expect lilypond to produce C11
from <c d e f g>. Instead I would use a parallel version of the chords for
symbols vs midi, and modify the chord in the version used to render symbols
to be spelling of C11 such as <c e g bes d f> in order to get the desired
symbol. YMMV.)
