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Symbolic Representation of Musical Chords: A Proposed Syntax for Text Annotations — Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2005)

Revision e1bd830e-ba52-45fd-ab66-45ec24cd88ab · 11/10/2026, 11:55:15 PM UTC
Key
harte2005-chord-syntax
Authors
Harte, Christopher; Sandler, Mark; Abdallah, Samer; Gómez, Emilia
Issued
2005
Type
paper-conference
Container
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2005)
Pages
66-71
Raw CSL JSON
{
  "DOI": "10.5281/zenodo.1415114",
  "URL": "https://archives.ismir.net/ismir2005/paper/000080.pdf",
  "page": "66-71",
  "type": "paper-conference",
  "title": "Symbolic Representation of Musical Chords: A Proposed Syntax for Text Annotations",
  "author": [
    {
      "given": "Christopher",
      "family": "Harte"
    },
    {
      "given": "Mark",
      "family": "Sandler"
    },
    {
      "given": "Samer",
      "family": "Abdallah"
    },
    {
      "given": "Emilia",
      "family": "Gómez"
    }
  ],
  "issued": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2005
      ]
    ]
  },
  "event-place": "London, UK",
  "container-title": "Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2005)"
}

Claims

  1. Harte and colleagues noted that there was no standard methodology for chord annotation and that the lack of annotated databases made evaluating and comparing chord detection algorithms difficult.
    "There is no standard methodology for chord annotation. When designing chord detection algorithms, the lack of annotated databases makes evaluation and comparison of results difficult."
    Locator: page: 66 · Quote language: en
  2. The syntax uses a single uppercase N to mark 'no chord', such as silence or untuned, possibly percussive material.
    "An extra chord state denoted by a single uppercase N is also added to signify 'no chord' to mark silence or untuned, possibly percussive musical material."
    Locator: page: 68 · Quote language: en
  3. Shorthand quality labels such as C:min7 stand for explicit lists of degrees, in this case C:(b3,5,b7).
    "Hence a C minor seventh chord could become: C:min7"
    Locator: section: 4.2 · Quote language: en
  4. In Harte and colleagues' syntax, the root note is written first, followed by a colon, a parenthesized list of chord degrees, and an optional bass note after a slash.
    "The root note is written first followed by a colon (:) separator. A comma delimited list of the chord degrees is then written, contained by parentheses. Finally, an optional bass note may be added at the end after a forward slash character (/) if it is different to the root."
    Locator: section: 4.1 · Quote language: en
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