Figured bass
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 07/02/2019

Figured bass, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11656 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Accompaniment
#Bass_(sound)
#Musical_notation
#Musical_terminology
#Tonality
Figured bass

Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of musical notation in which numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsichord, organ, lute (or other instruments capable of playing chords) play in relation to the bass note that these numbers and symbols appear above or below. Figured bass is closely associated with basso continuo, a historically improvised accompaniment used in almost all genres of music in the Baroque period of Classical music (1600–1750), though rarely in modern music.

Other systems for denoting or representing chords include plain staff notation, used in classical music; Roman numerals, commonly used in harmonic analysis; 
macro symbols, sometimes used in modern musicology; the Nashville number system; and various chord names and symbols used in jazz and popular music (e.g., C Major or simply C; D minor or Dm; G, etc.).

Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music. The phrase is often shortened to "continuo", and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part 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 piano, harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments which play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol, or bassoon. 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. Typically performers match the instrument f...