Figured Bass

Following a tip from one of my Old Books, I have been using the figured bass as my primary method of learning the score for the Mozart piece we are singing this Sunday, “Inter natos mulierum” (K. 72 – see here for more about it).

[a Figured Bass was used in the Baroque era to sketch the harmony much in the manner of a jazz "lead sheet," where the melody is given with chord symbols. Figured Bass works from the bottom up instead of down from the melody; the bass line is given, with numbers to indicate what chords are built on it. Here is the Wikipedia article on the subject.]

Score reading and figured bass are skills I am supposed to possess as a Musician. I am not terribly good at either. It is dawning on me that the latter is one of the keys to the former, at least for music from the Baroque up through early Beethoven (he includes figured bass in the Mass in C [1807], but not in the Missa Solemnis [1823]), and score study must start here in any event – something like a Bruckner symphonic score is not going to make much sense if one cannot deal with a Bach aria – or something like “Inter natos mulierum.”

“Keyboard Harmony [which included figured bass] and Sight-Singing” was a one-credit-hour required course for Freshmen in Music at my undergraduate college. It was taught by an adjunct instructor, the young wife of a faculty member in another field. She was a good musician, but had never taught such a thing and had little idea how to do it. I (and most other Freshmen in Music) lacked the background in music theory to make much of the subject, although if properly approached, the figured bass could have itself taught the music theory that I needed. Both teacher and students gave it their best effort, but it was an unfortunate combination, and one hour a week for one semester (with some outside practice squeezed in around many other duties) was far from adequate.

Looking back, I would have profited from laying all else aside for a year and learning the rudiments of Music. No piano lessons (aside perhaps from a regimen of scales and technical drill to avoid losing all facility), no music history, no general studies coursework. I would then have done better at all the other work, and been a much better Musician. But I could not have tolerated such harsh medicine, and it would obviously not fit with the four-year undergraduate curriculum.

Later on, figured bass was one of the skills required for the Associate's Certificate in the organist's guild, the A.A.G.O., where the test was the accompaniment of a recitative at sight [such as the one from Dido and Aeneas given as an example in the Wikipedia article linked above], reading from figured bass with vocal line. I passed, but still did not have a lot of facility with the art. One of the benefits of the Guild's programme of examinations is their old-fashioned emphasis on what should be rudimentary musical skills – rudimentary, but often unknown to working professional organists, pianists, and choral conductors. Figured bass is one: reading the C clefs is another. Harmony, Counterpoint, Fugue, Transposition, Improvisation... the list is long. I am a Fellow of the Guild, and passed tests in these areas, but am hardly more than a beginner in many of them. I hope to do better, in the residue of days granted to me.

Redeem thy misspent time that's past
And live this day as if thy last;
Improve thy talent with due care,
For the great day thyself prepare. (Thomas Ken)

I (and others) would have done better as Freshmen in Music had we been presented as soon as possible with Real Music (for example, the score of “Inter natos mulierum”) and been cajoled into using the figured bass to gain a sense of the piece, harmonically and otherwise. I am finding that no other approach I have used on choral/instrumental scores has led to as thorough an understanding of the piece – and my figured bass skill itself has improved a lot, just from a month or so of work on this one piece. That is important too – rather than reading a lot of different things, stay with one or two representative pieces until they are thoroughly mastered, right up to performance-level.

The best book on the subject is one that I have mentioned repeatedly: “Essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments” by C. P. E. Bach (1753). A more modern text, which (despite the virtues of Bach's Essay) is needed, is R. O. Morris, “Figured Harmony at the Keyboard” (Oxford Univ. Press, 1933).

Figured bass is also one of the keys to Improvisation, but that is for another essay.