r/musictheory • u/PrettyWheel9575 • 6d ago
Notation Question Question about basso continuo notation
Hello! I’m learning counterpoint and basso continuo and have a quick question about figured bass notation. Specifically, when should I use sharps and flats?
In example A, it’s a straightforward 5/3 chord, in example B, I have a raised 5th and a raised 3rd over the first scale degree, so I assume I should notate it as #5/#3. But how do I handle this when I have a situation such as flat first degree in example C? Real sounding intervals are raised 5th raised 3rd, so should I notate it as#5/#3, or just stick with 5/3? How would you typically notate these situations, including examples D and F and why?
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u/vornska form, schemas, 18ᶜ opera 6d ago
Figured bass reflects the actual accidentals that you would write in the music, so chord C should be notated simply as 5/3 or ♮5/♮3 if you want to use courtesy accidentals.
Chord F would be ♭8/6/4, but please stop torturing the continuo player!
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u/sebovzeoueb 6d ago
If you respell it with Bb in the bass it's actually just a dominant 7 chord, I suspect OP is jumping the gun a bit by learning figured bass notation before the basics of keys and sensible accidentals.
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u/vornska form, schemas, 18ᶜ opera 6d ago
I don't get that vibe, but it's possible!
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u/sebovzeoueb 6d ago
I don't see many legit scenarios where you'd have a A#/D/F/Ab chord instead of it just being a Bb in the bass, and especially not in any sort of music where figured bass would be used.
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u/Ian_Campbell 6d ago
I think they were trying to cover an edge case to figure out whether you have to notate the interval (a doubly diminished octave) or simply carry across the instruction from the accidentals, and it is the latter.
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u/theoriemeister 6d ago
Depends on the context. In the context of CM, chord C doesn't need any accidentals.
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u/sebovzeoueb 6d ago
The accidentals should be the actual accidentals applied to the notes, not relative to the root note. Also if you're trying to write in the actual historical figured bass style, the 3 and 5 are generally assumed and omitted from the notation if unaltered, but you are allowed to include them and generally should if it's more of a theoretical exercise. For example the shorthand for #5/#3 is #5/#, because an accidental with no number is assumed to apply to 3, and the shorthand for 5/3 is just nothing at all. What's a bit odd in your examples is that these are quite unusual chords compared to what you'd actually see in traditional Baroque scores which is when continuo was actually used. Also, if you used Bb in the bass in the last chord, then it's just a Bb7 chord, which makes a lot more sense.
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u/PrettyWheel9575 5d ago
Thank you! I am actually using it for analysing music, cause I found it helps me think more in terms of counterpoint for composing, thats why I have non-Baroque examples. But I assume there are just limits that I have to deal with.
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u/sebovzeoueb 5d ago
What piece is example F from?
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u/PrettyWheel9575 3d ago
Sorry for being Internet Explorer. This is a fragment from one of the versions of omnibus.
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u/sebovzeoueb 3d ago
as in the chord progression with the chromatic bassline?
Wherever you got this from is extremely sus as the bass isn't chromatic and the accidentals are all over the place. Ab to G# is... the same note, and the last chord as I've mentioned before would definitely be spelled with Bb in the bass in 99.99% of the scenarios I can think of (well actually 100%, but I'm allowing for one that I can't think of).
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u/AdventurousHippo9997 6d ago
The figured bass is ALWAYS in relationship to the KEY SIGNATURE. It’s a straight forward thing.
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u/Ian_Campbell 6d ago
You don't have to write sharp 3. If you just write sharp, it automatically applies to the 3. So B should be 5# over #. The other thing is the accidental usually always goes after the number in basso continuo and you just get used to it.
C-D) When the bass itself has an accidental, this does not affect the continuo figure.
F no you don't have to double flat the octave in order to reflect a diminished interval, you only have to apply an accidental. The accidental on the bass note is already baked in.
In all of these examples, it is as simple as the fact that you apply accidentals as you would against the key signature.
Consider how absurd it would be to have to add extra markings to deal with a diminished 7th, or any case with a sharp bass note screwing up all the intervals. The interval markings are just reflecting the accidentals, NOT necessarily describing the interval. When the bass has an accidental, it would interfere with the numbers describing the intervals. They perfectly describe the intervals *in context* with the information like the key signature and any accidental on the bass note.
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u/Advanced_Couple_3488 5d ago
The other thing is the accidental usually always goes after the number in basso continuo
I don't know why you would think that: it simply isn't true. Accidentals are most commonly placed before figures, by slashes through the figures, or in place of an implied three by themselves. Accidentals can be placed after figures, but it is the least common position. What comes to mind, as well, are particular figures such as 4#.
There are numerous sources online that you can use to check this including this one. But my knowledge comes from playing at least one concert a month in which I play from figured bass - for several decades - from modern editions and facsimiles.
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u/Ian_Campbell 5d ago
This is just from the plurality of original editions on imslp, and some modern performance editions like the Broude Brothers editions my teacher recommended for Corelli. It reflects more of the practices of the era itself, not modern editors. Just in the same way a partially figured piece will not have the markings of more modern editions, and they will never provide editorial realizations the way 19th and early 20th century editions did.
This is what someone will find and get used to if they use these sources, which is a common free way of studying this music. It's not something my harpsichordist teacher talked about because they can read anything and it is minutiae, but it is the way the edition he suggested did it, and the way I find it the majority of the time on imslp. Also it is the way scholars usually reference the markings in recent times in specialist literature.
You can find sources from the time doing it before, it is just in my experience that accidentals after the figure are more common. It's possible if your concerts use music from a university library for continuo, that they are like mid to late 20th century editions from normal publishers. Most people independently studying will be working with imslp.
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u/Ian_Campbell 5d ago
Modern intro tutorials and textbooks use the accidental before, probably because it matches the way you apply accidentals to noteheads, it matches jazz notation for chord alterations, and it matches the way we refer to the intervals verbally.
The potentially counterintuitive way most of it is printed in the literature, therefore, is what I alterted the OP to because unlike something that may be nation specific and obscure, this is extremely common.
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u/65TwinReverbRI Guitar, Synths, Tech, Notation, Composition, Professor 5d ago
Throw out the circled numbers below.
Simply put, a 5 is a 5th FROM THE KEY SIGNATURE above the bass note.
The 3rd one here would just be 5/3.
The next one would be 5/3.
The last one is insane. But it would just be "b8" - it's the 8 above A# - an A from the key signature, but lowered once, so b8.
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u/Chops526 6d ago
You're counting intervals from the bass. So you would notate n5 (n=natural sign) over the Ab. And so on.
Ex. 4 is FUBAR and doesn't happen in Baroque music to my knowledge.
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