Re: [musicxml] Separate Roman numeral analysis and chord symbols (#295)

(Apologies if this goes to email to the list -- it's just a little too long to lose the comment so I don't want to cancel the post.)

Everything that @MarcSabatella said about using kind (in fact, IV6 has as its interval from bass to the 6th of a minor-sixth, and iv6 has a major-sixth).  

One of the most controversial decisions I needed to make in music21 was deciding what do "VI" and "vio" and "vi" mean in minor?  (similar problems arise for ^7) Let's say we're in A minor --  the most common sixth-scale degree chords are going to be F major and f#diminished.  I believe that the majority of theorists would call these chords "VI" and "vio" respectively -- this is music21's default.  But this means that the root of the chord is determined by the quality of the roman numeral.  That's easy for humans to understand but makes parsing a lot harder.  Or you can say that the flat-6 is the norm so you'll need to specify "VI" vs "#vio".  Or you can say that sharp-6 is the norm, so they'd be "bVI" vs "vio".  Or some other theorists say that you always need the sharps and flats, so "bVI" vs "#vio" -- but then what does a strange chord like "#VI" mean?  (F# major?)  And "vi" (minor chord on 6) is ambiguous in any of these cases -- is it F minor or f# minor?  

I suggest that musicxml should choose an option that would be the "right" answer (I'd hope to choose the music21 default, but any specification is better than none).  But that the display of the symbol can be different from its specification.  (Also for V64/I64/Cad64, etc.)

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Received on Tuesday, 22 October 2019 18:20:20 UTC