page_title: Figured bass
section_title: Example in context
hierarchical_section_title: Figured bass / Figured bass notation / Example in context
context_page_description: Figured bass, also called thoroughbass, is a kind of musical notation in which numerals and symbols indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsichord, organ, lute 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, 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;
  chord letters, sometimes used in modern musicology; the Nashville Number System; and various chord names and symbols used in jazz and popular music.
caption: An example of figured bass in context. Taken from Beschränkt, ihr Weisen, by J. S. Bach (BWV 443). About this soundPlay (help·info)
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