Change octave of built in chords in Lilypond

Question

Lilypond has some built in chords which can be conveniently used with \chordmode

\new StaffGroup <<                                                                  
  \new Staff \with {                                                                
    instrumentName = "Piano"                                                        
    shortInstrumentName = "Pno"                                                     
  } \new Voice = "voice" \relative c {                                             
    \key b \major                                                                   
    \easyHeadsOn                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                    
    \chordmode {                                                                    
      b1                                                                            
    }                                                                               
  }                                                                                 
>>   

This produces:

Chordnames can also be printed with \chords:

\new StaffGroup <<
  \new Staff \with {
    instrumentName = "Piano"
    shortInstrumentName = "Pno"
  } \new Voice = "voice" \relative c {
    \key b \major
    \easyHeadsOn

    \chords {
      \chordmode {
        b1
      }
    }
  }
>>

This produces:

Is there a way to customize these built in chords ? Some of them do not sound good in the midi. I would prefer to use lower octave, for example. Just changing to relative c, does not seem to work.

I am aware I can write my own chords using <> notation, but I just want to print chord names in the final output and have an acceptable midi. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

You can simply do b,1. \chordmode is a special parser mode that does not use relative information, so you need to specify the octave for each note.