Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and nonchord tones, in relation to a bass note. See also Modern musical symbols Music notation or musical notation is any system which represents aurally perceived Music through the use In Music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two Notes Intervals may be described as vertical This article describes musical chords in traditional Western styles A nonchord tone, nonharmonic tone, or non-harmony note is a note in a piece of Music which is not a part of the chord that is formed Figured bass is closely associated with basso continuo, an accompaniment used in almost all genres of music in the Baroque period, though rarely in modern music. In Music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with a soloist or ensemble, often known as the Lead, in a Supporting manner Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750.
Contents |
Basso continuo
Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600-1750), were, as the name implies, played continuously throughout a piece, providing the harmonic structure of the music. Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously and chords actual or implied in Music. The word is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part, if more than one, are called the continuo group.
The makeup of the continuo group is often left to the discretion of the performers, and practice varied enormously within the Baroque period. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, or harp. A harpsichord is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. The organ (from Greek όργανον – organon "organ instrument tool" is a Keyboard instrument of one or more divisions each Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either Fretted or unfretted and a deep round back or more specifically to an instrument from A theorbo (tiorba also tuorbe; tiorba Theorbe is a plucked string instrument The guitar is a Musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles The harp is a Stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. In addition, any number of instruments which play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol, viola da gamba, or bassoon. Bass (ˈbɛɪs as in base) when used as an adjective is used to describe tones of low Frequency or range. The violoncello (abbreviated to cello, or 'cello, plural cellos or celli —the c is tʃ The double bass is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed String instrument used in the modern symphony orchestra. The viol (also called viola da gamba) is any one of a family of bowed, Fretted stringed Musical instruments developed in the 1400s The viol (also called viola da gamba) is any one of a family of bowed, Fretted stringed Musical instruments developed in the 1400s The bassoon is a Woodwind instrument in the Double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and Tenor registers and occasionally The most common combination, at least in modern performances, is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular vocal works, such as operas, and organ for sacred music. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Religious music (also sacred music) is Music performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence Very rarely, however, in the Baroque period, the composer requested specifically for a certain instrument (or instruments) to play the continuo. In addition, the mere composition of certain works seems to require certain kind of instruments (for instance, Vivaldi's Stabat Mater seems to require an organ, and not a harpsichord).
The keyboard (or other chording instrument) player realizes a continuo part by playing, in addition to the indicated bass notes, upper notes to complete chords, either determined ahead of time or improvised in performance. Improvisation (also called extemporization) is the practice of acting singing talking and reacting of making and creating in the moment and in response to the stimulus of The player can also "imitate" the soprano (which is the name for the solo instrument or singer) and elaborate on themes in the soprano musical line. The figured bass notation, described below, is a guide, but performers are expected to use their musical judgment and the other instruments or voices as a guide. Modern editions of music usually supply a realized keyboard part, fully written out for the player, eliminating the need for improvisation. With the rise in historically informed performance, however, the number of performers who improvise their parts, as Baroque players would have done, has increased. The historically informed performance, period performance, or authentic performance movement is an approach by musicians and scholars to research and perform works
Basso continuo, though an essential structural and identifying element of the Baroque period, continued to be used in many works, especially sacred choral works, of the classical period (up to around 1800). The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as 1750 to 1810 An example is C.P.E. Bach's Concerto in d minor for flute strings and basso continuo. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ( March 8, 1714 &ndash December 14, 1788) was a German musician and composer the second of five sons Examples of its use in the 19th century are rarer, but they do exist: masses by Anton Bruckner, Beethoven, and Franz Schubert, for example, have a basso continuo part for an organist to play. The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar For other uses see Mass (disambiguation The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that Anton Bruckner (4 September 1824 &ndash 11 October 1896 was an Austrian composer known primarily for his symphonies, masses, and Motets Ludwig van Beethoven ( English ˈlʊdvɪg væn ˈbeɪtoʊvən, 16 December 1770 &ndash 26 March 1827 was a German Composer and Pianist.
Figured bass notation
A part notated with figured bass consists of a bass-line notated with notes on a musical staff plus added numbers and accidentals beneath the staff to indicate at what intervals above the bass notes should be played, and therefore which inversions of which chords are to be played. In Music, the term note has two primary meanings 1 a sign used in Musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a Sound; In standard Western Musical notation, the staff ( AmE) or stave In Music, an accidental is a Note whose pitch (or Pitch class) is not a member of a scale or mode indicated by the In Music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two Notes Intervals may be described as vertical In Music theory, the word inversion has several meanings There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and The phrase tasto solo indicates that only the bass line (without any upper chords) is to be played for a short period, usually until the next figure is encountered.
Composers were inconsistent in the usages described below. Especially in the 17th century, the numbers were omitted whenever the composer thought the chord was obvious. Early composers such as Claudio Monteverdi often specified the octave by the use of compound intervals such as 10, 11, and 15. In Music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two Notes Intervals may be described as vertical
Numbers
The numbers indicate the number of scale steps above the given bass-line that a note should be played. In Music, a scale is a group of musical notes collected in ascending and descending order that provides material for or is used to conveniently represent part or all For example:
Here, the bass note is a C, and the numbers 4 and 6 indicate that notes a fourth and a sixth above it should be played, that is an F and an A. In other words, the second inversion of an F major chord is to be played.
In cases where the numbers 3 or 5 would normally be indicated, these are usually (though not always) left out, owing to the frequency these intervals occur. For example:
In this sequence, the first note has no numbers accompanying it—both the 3 and the 5 have been omitted. This means that notes a third above and a fifth above should be played—in other words, a root position chord. The next note has a 6, indicating a note a sixth above it should be played; the 3 has been omitted—in other words, this chord is in first inversion. The third note has only a 7 accompanying it; here, as in the first note, both the 3 and the 5 have been omitted—the seven indicates the chord is a seventh chord. The whole sequence is equivalent to:
although the performer may choose himself which octave to play the notes in and will often elaborate them in some way rather than play only chords, depending on the tempo and texture of the music. 2266-Tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl or TEMPO is the Chemical compound with the formula (CH23(CMe22NO In Music, texture is the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices in the music and by the relationship between
Sometimes, other numbers are omitted: a 2 on its own or 42 indicate 642, for example.
Sometimes the figured bass number changes but the bass note itself does not. In these cases the new figures are written wherever in the bar they are meant to occur. In the following example, the top line is supposed to be a melody instrument and is given merely to indicate the rhythm (it is not part of the figured bass itself):
When the bass note changes but the notes in the chord above it are to be held, a line is drawn next to the figure or figures to indicate this:
The line extends for as long as the chord is to be held.
Accidentals
When an accidental is shown on its own without a number, it applies to the note a third above the lowest note; most commonly, this is the third of the chord. In Music, an accidental is a Note whose pitch (or Pitch class) is not a member of a scale or mode indicated by the Otherwise, if a number is shown, the accidental affects the said interval. For example, this:
is equivalent to this:
Sometimes the accidental is placed after the number rather than before it.
Alternatively, a cross placed next to a number indicates that the pitch of that note should be raised by a semitone (so that if it is normally a flat it becomes a natural, and if it is normally a natural it becomes a sharp). A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest Musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music and it is considered the In Music, flat means "lower in pitch" More specifically in Music notation, flat means "lower in pitch by a Semitone In Music, sharp means higher in pitch More specifically in Musical notation, sharp means "higher in pitch by a Semitone (half step" A different way to indicate this is to draw a bar through the number itself. The following three notations, therefore, all indicate the same thing: 
When sharps or flats are used with key signatures they may have a slightly different meaning, especially in 17th-century music. In Musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently A sharp might be used to cancel a flat in the key signature, or vice versa, instead of a natural sign. In Musical notation, a natural sign ( is an accidental sign used to cancel a flat or sharp from either a preceding note or the Key signature
History
The origins of basso continuo practice are somewhat unclear. Improvised organ accompaniments for choral works were common by the late 16th century, and separate organ parts showing only a bass line date back to at least 1587. In the mid-16th century, some Italian church composers began to write polychoral works. This article is about the musical term See Antiphon (person the orator of ancient Greece These pieces, for two or more choirs, were created in recognition of particularly festive occasions, or else to take advantage of certain architectural properties of the buildings in which they were performed. With eight or more parts to keep track of in performance, works in polychoral style required some sort of instrumental accompaniment. They were also known as cori spezzati, since the choirs were structured in musically independent or interlocking parts, and may sometimes also have been placed in physically different locations.
It is important to note that the concept of allowing two or more concurrently performing choirs to be independent structurally would or could almost certainly not have arisen had there not been an already existing practice of choral accompaniment in church. Financial and administrative records indicate the presence of organs in churches dates back to the 15th century. Although their precise use is not known, it stands to reason that it was to some degree in conjunction with singers. Indeed, there exist many first-person accounts of church services from the 15th and 16th centuries that imply organ accompaniment in some portions of the liturgy, as well as indicating that the a cappella-only practice of the Vatican's Cappella Sistina was somewhat unusual. Vatican City, officially the State of the Vatican City (Stato della Città del Vaticano is a Landlocked sovereign City-state whose territory Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina is the best-known Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. By early in the 16th century, it seems that accompaniment by organ at least in smaller churches was commonplace, and commentators of the time lamented on occasion the declining quality of church choirs. Even more tellingly, many manuscripts, especially from the middle of the century and later, feature written-out organ accompaniments. It is this last observation which leads directly to the foundations of continuo practice, in a somewhat similar one called basso seguente or "following bass. "
Written-out accompaniments are found most often in early polychoral works (those composed, obviously, before the onset of concerted style and its explicit instrumental lines), and generally consist of a complete reduction (to what would later be called the "grand staff") of one choir’s parts. Concertato is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a genre or a style of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody usually In addition to this, however, for those parts of the music during which that choir rested was presented a single line consisting of the lowest note being sung at any given time, which could be in any vocal part. Even in early concerted works by the Gabrieli's (Andrea and Giovanni), Monteverdi and others, the lowest part, that which modern performers colloquially call "continuo", is actually a basso seguente, though slightly different, since with separate instrumental parts the lowest note of the moment is often lower than any being sung. Andrea Gabrieli (1532/1533? – August 30, 1585) was an Italian Composer and Organist of the late Renaissance. Giovanni Gabrieli (c 1554/1557 &ndash August 12 1612 was an Italian Composer and organist.
The first known published instance of a basso seguente was a book of Introits and Alleluias by the Venetian Placido Falconio from 1575. The Introit ( Latin: introitus, "entrance" is part of the opening of the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass and the Lutheran The Alleluia is chanted before the Gospel lesson in the Eucharistic Liturgies of the various Christian liturgical rites. Placido Falconio, also called Falconi in some sources was an Italian composer of the 16th century. What is known as "figured" continuo, which also features a bass line that because of its structural nature may differ from the lowest note in the upper parts, developed over the next quarter-century. The composer Lodovico Viadana is often credited with the first publication of such a continuo, in a 1602 collection of motets that according to his own account had been originally written in 1594. Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (usually Lodovico Viadana, though his family name was Grossi c Viadana’s continuo, however, did not actually include figures. The earliest extant part with sharp and flat signs above the staff is a motet by Giovanni Croce, also from 1594. In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions Giovanni Croce (also Ioanne a Cruce Clodiensis, Zuanne Chiozotto) (1557 – May 15, 1609) was an Italian composer of the late
Following and figured basses developed concurrently in secular music; such madrigal composers as Emilio de' Cavalieri and Luzzasco Luzzaschi began in the late 16th century to write works explicitly for a soloist with accompaniment, following an already standing practice of performing multi-voice madrigals this way, and also responding to the rising influence at certain courts of particularly popular individual singers. Emilio de' Cavalieri (c 1550&ndash March 11, 1602) was an Italian Composer, producer, Organist, diplomat Choreographer Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c 1545 &ndash September 10, 1607) was an Italian Composer, Organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance This tendency toward solo-with-accompaniment texture in secular vocal music culminated in the genre of monody, just as in sacred vocal music it resulted in the sacred concerto for various forces including few voices and even solo voices. In Poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death The use of numerals to indicate accompanying sonorities began with the earliest operas, composed by Cavalieri and Giulio Caccini. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Giulio Caccini ( October 8 1551 &ndash December 10 1618) was an Italian composer teacher singer instrumentalist and writer
These new genres, just as the polychoral one probably was, were indeed made possible by the existence of a semi- or fully independent bass line. In turn, the separate bass line, with figures added above to indicate other chordal notes, shortly became "functional," as the sonorities became "harmonies," (see harmony and tonality), and music came to be seen in terms of a melody supported by chord progressions, rather than interlocking, equally important lines as in polyphony. In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously and chords actual or implied in Music. Tonality is a system of Music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center" or tonic. In Music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent Melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( Monophony The figured bass, therefore, was integral to the development of the Baroque, by extension the ”classical”, and by further extension most subsequent musical styles. Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as 1750 to 1810
Many composers and theorists of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries wrote how-to guides to realizing figured bass, including Gregor Aichinger, Georg Philipp Telemann, C.P.E. Bach, and Michael Praetorius. Gregor Aichinger (c 1565 &ndash 1628 was a German composer He was Organist to the Fugger family of Augsburg in 1584 Georg Philipp Telemann (March 14 1681 &ndash June 25 1767 was a German Baroque music Composer, born in Magdeburg. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach ( March 8, 1714 &ndash December 14, 1788) was a German musician and composer the second of five sons Michael Praetorius (probably February 15 1571 &ndash February 15 1621 was a German Composer, organist, and writer about Music.
Contemporary uses
It is also sometimes used by classical musicians as a shorthand way of indicating chords (though it is not generally used in modern musical compositions, save neo-Baroque pieces). A form of figured bass is used in notation of accordion music; another simplified form is used to notate guitar chords. The accordion is a portable box-shaped Musical instrument of the hand-held Bellows -driven free-reed aerophone family sometimes referred to as a Squeezebox A guitar chord is a chord, a collection of tones usually sounded together at once played on a Guitar, a type of chromatically fretted String Today the most common use of figured bass notation is to indicate the inversion, however, often without the staff notation, using letter note names followed with the figure, for instance the bass note C in 64 figured bass would be written 
. In Music theory, the word inversion has several meanings There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and The symbols can also be used with Roman numerals in analyzing functional harmony, a usage called figured Roman; see chord symbol. A diatonic function, in tonal Music theory, is the specific recognized Roles of Notes or chords in relation to the key. Chord notation refers to the written notation for musical chords.
External links
- Figured Bass Symbology by Robert Kelley
- Chords that the (major) scale degrees (in the bass) can imply by Robert Kelley
- Theory and Practice of the Basso Continuo by Barry Mitchell
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic