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Even some musicians haven’t heard of figured bass. Also called basso continuo, a simple comprehensible statement of the term is a short way to note chords on a musical score. If you have never heard of it, it’s most likely because the method isn’t applied today. However, it could be considered akin to, or a precursor of, a modern chord chart. Figured bass originated in the Baroque era of the17th and 18th century. Music has evolved over the centuries and still does today. The development of figured bass came in response to one of these early musical style evolutions. The Baroque music amount of time came on the heels of the Renaissance period. Music from the Renaissance was in general characterized by it is reliance upon intervals of thirds. Of course, musical trends evolve over a amount of time of time. For this reason, it’s difficult to pinpoint an precise year when this trend shifted. Usually a new musical era is well underneath way before any person realizes there has been a change. Modal characteristics of Renaissance music in the end gave way to more tonal music. The defining characteristic of tonal music is it is use of fifths. This is in contrast to the former intervals of thirds. This led the way for Baroque style music. Composers and musicians in this amount of time started out using more elaborate instrumentation for the duration of the Baroque period. New musical instruments were being produced that contributed to the trend. Many of them had wider range capabilities, permitting for more assortment in musical scores. New playing proficiencies were also developed, lending a distinction to music of this amount of time such as had not antecedently been heard. The more complex nature of Baroque music made a new form of musical notation a necessity. This is how figured bass was born. Playing music by reading figured bass required more than rudimentary musical skills. With this method, the melody line and the bass line are brought up on a traditionalisti musical scale (bass clef and treble clef). The instrumentalist(s) would fill in the concord lines based on the bass note. The harmoniousness part, or the share that was implied but not written in the score, was known as the continuo. To play figured bass, it is necessary to have a working understanding of chords. An instrumentalist reading a score with figured bass would see the melody notes and the bass notes. The instrumentalist would assume that the continuo notes that would accompany would be a standard fifth interval unless other than as supposed or expected noted. If another variation was desired, numbers would appear on the score beneath the bass note indicating the suitable interval. Like a lot of trends, the use of the figured bass method became obsolete. Today, chords are often indicated by abbreviating their names (i.e.,”C7″ for a C major/minor seventh chord). Similar to figured bass, instrumentalists have some leeway for improvisation with this type of musical annotation. This is in contrast to music that has each note for each portion annotated on a musical staff. Like shorthand once was to writing, so was figured bass to music. And like shorthand, changes in engineering science and trends have primarily diminished the use of figured bass. Most helpful customer reviews 13 of 13 people found the following review helpful. |
Another great Baroque compilation disc!