tusitala wrote:for example i never ever wrote or found myself reading a chart with chords symbols like this:
delta.tiff
or like this:
minoredelta.tiff
and i'm simply used to the fact that i should be able to choose which way i want to write my chord symbols...
i also found strange the way all alterations (like b9 #11 etc) are placed in the same row after the chord
Once I realized that you were not referring to guitar chord diagrams, I did a bit of checking, and I think we are on the same page, literally and perhaps metaphorically . . .
I had noticed a tiny bit of strangeness in the nomenclature for the names of chords, but more as the consequence of selecting the "play by ear" option with respect to electric guitar approximately half a century ago, which makes pretty much anything beyond "C minor", "Cmin", or "Cm" with perhaps one of the happier numbers {6, 7, 9} nonsensical from my perspective no matter how it is written, so I never use it or look at it, although unbeknown to me until several months ago I understand all of it intimately from the perspective of music theory and so forth and so on, but primarily with notes on the treble clef rather than with dots on the fretboard of an electric guitar . . .
So, I did a quick experiment and selected two chords that certainly appear to me to have been devised by the aliens from outer space, since I have no immediately conscious idea what they might be, as is shown in the following screen capture, where there are two chords, with each chord showing the default, minimal, and symbolic flavor of the chord's abbreviation, short name, or whatever these things are called, really . . .
Really!If I take a bit of time, I can make sense of the first chord, which after looking at it for a while is what I would describe as a "C minor with an added major seventh", which I understand but never would play, because it makes no sense to me, and I am not entirely certain off the top of my head what a "major seventh" actually is, although I can go to town on "Cm" and "Cm7", since these are used in a lot of Beatles songs, mostly as Barre chords, and I think that "C minor with an added major seventh" is an entirely different chord, for sure . . .
For sure! And the dash and little triangle flavor is completely and totally strange, although I might have seen it somewhere and then worked diligently to forget it ever since, because I have enough difficulty with "major seventh" without replacing it with hieroglyphs . . .
The second chord is even stranger, since without doing a bit of Googling and finding some information in wikipedia, I have no idea what the tiny circle thingy represents, other than "7 degrees Celsius", which not being European makes my best guess somewhere along the lines of it being a cool or perhaps warm but not overly hot chord, which basically makes it a
Jazz chord and something one might hear in a Kenny G song, hence should be avoided diligently . . .
SUMMARIZING:
(1) Your observations are correct . . .
(2) This is a pretty strange way to name guitar chords, but with the caveat that it is pretty strange to me, because I play by ear and use a system where I name chords after the first song I heard that features a specific chord in a prominent way, where for example this is the dot diagram for what I call the "Tighten Up" chord, because I first heard it in the hit song "Tighten Up" (Archie Bell & The Drells) . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIdug40ZM-M"Tighten Up" Chord(3) The "default" and "minimal" flavors are not entirely strange, but the "symbols" flavor is a new one for me, which makes it interesting in a curious way . . .
(4) Nevertheless, when one does a bit of Googling and visits wikipedia, it appears that all the hieroglyphs are a generally recognized set of symbols in the
Jazz and
Pop communities, which probably one of the reasons that I typically avoid listening to
Jazz and
Pop music . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_names_and_symbols_%28jazz_and_pop_music%29(5) Apparently, the tiny circle thingy represents "diminished", and I like diminished chords for those times when I am in a
Jazz mood or simply want to play a strange chord . . .
(6) Ultimately, I think the practical utility is strongly dependent upon one's perspective, and from my perspective I am concerned primarily that there is some way to do what I want to do, which with Notion 3 continues to be the case, since while the chord names do not make a lot of sense to me in any immediately conscious way no matter how they are written, the chord diagrams are
sufficient with the names for identifying purposes, and I suppose that I can learn the various names and symbols if the need arises . . .
And while I generally have no idea about the elaborate names, I probably play all the chords at one time or another but based on the way they sound rather than their names, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!