PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Available chords and automatic chord name substitution in BiaB

I tried to bring that graphic up in BiaB but couldn't figure out how. Can you tell me what to click on?

Also, I've done some more research on the A2 vs. Asus2 chords and discovered that the statement I made in my OP about the A2 and the Asus2 chords being different was somewhat misleading because it's technically incorrect, depending on which naming convention is being used. See the discussion of the A2 chord at the following website for more info:

https://ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?10138-What-is-an-A2-Chord

The deeper I dig into this, the more confusing it becomes because there isn't a standard chord naming convention for guitars, as mentioned in the following quote from someone named "Poparad" towards the end of the above discussion:

"I think a lot of this 'sus' confusion stems from that fact that a lot of people forget where the 'suspension' even came from or why it's called that.

The word 'suspension' means to hold up, to retain temporarily. The 'sus4' chord developed out of the practice of holding notes over in the change of a IV chord to a V chord. In the key of C, a IV V progression is F major to G major. When the chord changes, the note 'C' from the F major chord was 'suspended' temporarily, and then resolved down to a 'B' on the G major chord, creating a delayed resolution of the G chord. The first common method of notating harmony was figured bass, which merely indicated the intervals to be played above the given bass note. In the case of a suspension, the abbreviation 'sus' was added after the roman numeral of the bass note, followed by the interval above which the suspended note was to be. There were actually other kinds of suspensions other than the 4; there were suspended 6ths and suspended 2nds, both resolving downward to the 5th or the root, respectively.

When music began to be labelled in a chord-oriented format, the 'sus4' label was retained to designate this practice. Eventually, over time people began to use the 'sus4' chord as a seperate entity, and not necessarily resolving it.

But what if on that IV V progression an A was held and then resolved up to a B? In this case, it has traditionally been labelled as a retardation, but the label 'ret2' or something to that effect never came about. "Sus2" is result of borrowing an already existing label to name something similar, even though technically a sus2 isn't a suspension. What is commonly today referred to as a 'sus2' chord would have to omit the Root of the chord, as that is the note a 'sus2' resolves downward to. Since these chords include the root but not the third, they are actually retardations, but again, through common practice, they are no longer required to be resolved.

As a result a sort of dichotomy evolved in the music world. Amongst guitar players in the rock/pop music realm, 'sus2' became the standard for notating a chord composed of Root, 2nd, and 5th. In the realm of music involving non-guitarists, such as jazz, the label "C2" became accepted for the same chord.

There really is no point in disputing the authenticity or widespread use of either term, as they are firmly implanted into the vocabulary of both realms of music and pedagogy. So in the end, we should probably just accept both labels as acceptable terms for the same chord, much in the same way that the notes "C Eb Gb Bb" can be called either "Cm7b5" or "CØ7" with equal legitimacy."

Then there's the next post, which introduces another twist:

"Some sites are using A2 to refer to Aadd9
Poparad,

Your explanation is wonderful. It appears there is still some confusion out there on this naming convention. At this site, http://www.hobby-hour.com/guitar/chords.php?chord=asus2 they are showing the fingering for the chord I see on lead sheets as A2, but they spell it out as Asus2. The different chord they call an A2 chord is actually an Aadd9 and as a rock/pop guitarist I almost never play that chord. The chord I play is fingered like an A major chord, but with an open B string. That would be an Asus2, normally written as A2 due to the reasons you noted above, except on this site (which ranked at the top of my Google search for "A2 chord") where they call an Aadd9 A2. So confusing."

So, besides my confusion over the chord names being used in BiaB (A2 vs. Asus2), what I really need to know is what BiaB means by an A2 chord and by an Asus2 chord. From my experience, when BiaB substitutes Asus2 for an A2 chord in my XML file, the sound of that chord is not correct because it clashes with the B note in my melody. But when I change it to an A2 chord in the chord sheet and regenerate, a different chord is played that sounds correct because it doesn't clash with the B note. IOW, if these two chords are allegedly the same, why do they sound different from each other in BiaB?