Actually it was arpeggio in accompaniment (in musicxml) that tripped lily up!
"If you enter notes sequentially without angle brackets (as single, isolated notes in an arpeggio), LilyPond will not merge them into a single chord symbol. Because the chord engine operates on a single moment in musical time, it interprets sequential notes as entirely separate events. Passing a standard arpeggio line like c4 e4 g4 c4 through a ChordNames block will cause LilyPond to generate four distinct chord symbols (e.g., C, Em, G, C) rather than one unified "C" symbol." On Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 11:29 AM David Topham <[email protected]> wrote: > So this response I got is incorrect? Maybe older version? > > "LilyPond does not possess a built-in algorithmic note-to-chord engine > that can listen to arbitrary individual notes and auto-generate lead-sheet > chord symbols. Because it is a typesetter rather than a digital audio > workstation (DAW), you have to explicitly tell LilyPond what the chord name > is" > > > > On Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 10:16 AM Carl Sorensen <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> >> On Sun, Jun 28, 2026, 10:36 AM David Topham <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Thanka Lucas, but I don't think midi2ly creates the chord names from the >>> midi file; just the individual notes. >>> I was hoping to not have to manually retype those chords. >>> Just an idea... >>> I think I can parse the mma to get chords, then create the ly file. I >>> imagine someone has already done that, but I think I can use awk and lots >>> of conversion rules. >>> >> >> The ChordNames context will automatically create Chord Names from chird >> pitches. If you get the pitches out of the mma file, LilyPond can create >> the chord names. >> >> Carl >> >>> >>>
