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DCMLab / standards

Repository containing standards developed at the DCML. https://dcmlab.github.io/standards
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Suspension vs passing notes #9

Open MFNeuwirth opened 5 years ago

MFNeuwirth commented 5 years ago

As of yet, our standard does not really differentiate between suspensions and passing notes (both are notated with figures between brackets). Is this another aspect we should discuss about when revising the standard?

fabianmoss commented 5 years ago

The distinction between suspensions and passing notes is also not as sharp as it seems. It depends how much context is taken into account. And we never specified this explicitly (because it's probably impossible). For instance, take the following sequence in C major:

V7 - V(64) - V

Are the notes C and E passing notes or suspensions? If we only look at the last two chords, they are suspensions, if we look at all chords, they are passing notes. The situation can arbitrarily be extended, e.g.:

V7(9) - V(64) - V7 - V(64) - V

I am sure there are also more complex cases. In my opinion it is not so urgent to find a solution to differentiate these two because it (at least partially) lies in the eye of the beholder.