Missing Chord - sus#4

First, while this is an interesting philosophical discussion, it *shouldn't* really have any impact on whther MuseScore can handle the chord in question. In an ideal world' at least, MuseScore could handle anything reasonable you tossed at it, parsing a chord symbol more or less the way a human would. But unfortunately, the reality is that MuseScore doesn't do this. It has a long list of chord symbols it knows, and if a chord isn't on the list, it isn't recognized, even if it would seem to follow all the normal rules. Chords can be added to the list, but it is a bit cumbersome, as the work has to be reproduced in all the different chord description styles, plus it has to do MusicXML export correctly. So while I don't mind adding a chord that someone argues shold be included, from a practical perspective we can't realistically add every possible chord that could potentially exist. I would bope to keep the list to chord symbols that are really needed by someone. So before I just add a chord, I do like to make sure we've thought it through.

So while I'm already convinced it's worth adding, I do still have resevations about the wisdom of actually using it.

The confusion I alluded to comes from the simple fact that being a non-standard chord symbol, most people will have never seen it before and therefore don't have a ready made concept pf how to play it. They'll see the "sus" and immediately their fingers will probably reach for the natural fourth. If they have time to think about the #4 before moving on to the next chord, they'll probably wonder if you want the #4 in addition to or instead of the natural fourth, and may well guess wrong. So there is a very good chance the chord just won't be played correctly, and that's always the danger when inventing chord symbols.

Then there is the matter of whether a chord symbol really should be expected to tell anyone exactly what notes to play or whether it is more of a guideliens to the implied harmony. As I suggested before, aside from the basic vanilla triads, no professional musicians I know see a chord symbol as telling them to play those notes and only those notes. Except in the very simplest music based only on major and minor triads, accompaniment generally contains added passing tones and color tones used in the figuration of the chord. Any music that is harmonically complex enough to have a sonority like C-F#-G is music in which musicians would not treat a chord symbol so literally. Musicians would add the same sort of additional color tones they would normally add in other harmonically complex music. So even though you might want only those three notes, there is practically no chance that that is all you'll get. Like it or not, you're going to get color tones. And while a musician would try to use context to tell him if the seventh to add would be a major or dominant seventh, there is a decent chance he'd guess wrong given that, again, this is a chord he's never seen before. So not only he would he try to add a seventh somewhere in the accompaniment, but he'd very possibly end up with the wrong one.

Anyhow, it reasons that like this that cause me to advise people not to invwnt chord symbols when other more conventional chord symbols will likely yield better results. As someone who has arranged or edited literally hundeds of charts for inclusion in fakebooks (jazz,blues, rock), I can tell you there is no way the publisher would use a symbol like Csus#4. But of course, it's your chart, so do what you want, and again, I'm already planning on adding this to the lists.