7.2.1 Introducing chord names

LilyPond has support for printing chord names. Chords may be entered in musical chord notation, i.e., < .. >, but they can also be entered by name. Internally, the chords are represented as a set of pitches, so they can be transposed

     
     twoWays = \transpose c c' {
       \chordmode {
         c1 f:sus4 bes/f
       }
       <c e g>
       <f bes c'>
       <f bes d'>
     }
     
     << \new ChordNames \twoWays
        \new Voice \twoWays >>

This example also shows that the chord printing routines do not try to be intelligent. The last chord (f bes d) is not interpreted as an inversion.

Note that the duration of chords must be specified outside the <>.

<c e g>2