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I have been taking a look at musicXML specs and as far as I know, support for chord symbols does not saves the duration of the chord. This is an example for G6/D (from here): 

      <harmony default-y="100">
        <root>
          <root-step>G</root-step>
        </root>
        <kind halign="center" text="6">major-sixth</kind>
        <bass>
          <bass-step>D</bass-step>
        </bass>
      </harmony>

It seems that a chord has to be associated always with a note. But suppose we have a 9/4 bar with a whole note, and three chords each of them lasting three beats, and in the next bar we have another whole note, and again three chords but now, the first lasts 4 beats, the second 3 and the third 2. So:

bar1 (9/4): Cm7 (3) Dm7 (3) Em (3)
bar2 (9/4): Cm7 (4) Dm7 (3) Em (2)

Is it possible to save that as musicXML format?

Matthieu Brucher
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de3
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2 Answers2

3

You can put harmony elements whereever you like musically. The harmony element itself doesn't move the timeline - for that you need a note, forward, or backup element. However, the harmony element has a child offset element that let's you move the position of the harmony element away from the current timeline position. Make sure to use <offset sound="yes"> so that both the sounding harmony and the written chord symbol are moved together to the correct musical location.

Michael
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1

My sense is that what you ask isn't possible, because as you notice each symbol needs to be associated with a note. But they can be associated with rests, and even rests with print-object="no" tag. Or you could place your symbol in the score and then use tags to skip over to the next position in the measure. That would give the most accurate representation of your data, but at a cost of probably not rendering properly in notation software and other user agents that depend on notes for storing logical positions internally.

Michael Scott Asato Cuthbert
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