It's worth remembering that MIDI is an format for sending play data to or from a musical instrument, not a format for musical notation. It focuses on the individual notes, their velocity, their timing and assorted instrument controls. A chord name doesn't really fit in to that concept.

Music XML is designed to handle notational elements as well as the above, so is much better suited to handling things like chord names.

The obvious downside is that Music XML is also pretty complex and isn't always generated or processed as well as it might be. As it's also an SGML format, rather than the very compact raw data of MIDI, the files are also much larger.


Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11
BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software.
Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts
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