{"id":1013,"date":"2016-03-26T23:51:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-26T23:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krammer.nl\/blog\/en\/?p=1013"},"modified":"2018-11-26T11:40:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T11:40:47","slug":"lowercase-symbols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krammer.nl\/blog\/en\/lowercase-symbols\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowercase Symbols"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Aa\"<\/a>When I was eighteen and just started playing the piano, I talked to my somewhat eccentric uncle, who was a fanatic amateur musician. He told me I should write minor chords using lowercase letters. Being impressed by his overwhelming personality, I followed his advice. And it is not a bad idea! It matches the way major and minor keys are sometimes notated in classical music (especially in European countries). For example, a violin concerto would be in D-major or in d-minor. And using uppercase and lowercase matches the way scale degrees are commonly notated. <\/p>\n

If you write minor chords using a lowercase letter, than you don’t need the indication m<\/i> anymore. If we apply this to My funny Valentine<\/i>, it looks something like this:
\n          d           d\/<\/q>C#<\/q>
\n     My funny Valentine
\n          d\/<\/q>C           d\/<\/q>B<\/q>
\n     Sweet comic Valentine
\n          B@<\/q>           g11<\/q>
\n     You make me smile
\n          e7<5<\/q>           A7<\/q>
\n     With my heart<\/p>\n

There is definitely something in favor of this kind of notation. It’s very concise and intuitively compelling. I’ve used this way of writing minor chords for quite some time. Until a couple of years later, I realized that, though it is handy, it just isn’t the common way of notating chords. Nowadays, in scores I will always conform myself to the standard using capitals.<\/p>\n\n