At the moment i'm trying to get my head around this figuring a bass question for grade 7 theory. I get suspensions and where the different cadences are in the piece but i don't understand how you know whether to put a root chord, root chord with a seventh or to use an inversion? And i do understand how figured bass works i just can't get me head around it, and i'm not going to see my teacher for a week..
Can anyone help please?!?

You don't have a choice when it comes to inversions etc, you already have the bass note and the figures tell you which degrees to put above it. It's more a logic puzzle than a harmony exercise!

yer but the note in the bass could be an inversion of note in melody.. coudn't it?
for example if the note was B in the bass and the melody note was G couldnt it be a chord in G in first inversion? or have i just made myself get into a complete muddle?!?!?

ahhh, are you talking about when there are no numbers, or are there numbers underneath?

Simply, figure from the bass note.

The figures aren't given at grade 7. You're given a bass line and a melody line and have to supply the figures.


To decide what figuring to give, you need to look at the melody notes which have to fit with a particular bass note and see what the implied harmony is. Sometimes there'll be several posibilities, so you just need to choose the one that you think works best (making sure you don't get consecutives or anything like that).

T.

Ok thanks
I kind of get your drift.. I'll have another stab at it.

Ah right, sorry was thinking g6...

When I did mine I wrote harmony first - look for any "standard progressions" (good old IIb Ic V7 I!) you can get in there. Get the bones in at the cadences etc then fill out the rest.

yer thats what i'm trying to do, lilke wirte the roman numurals in, but i find it hard translating from them to figured bass.. i don't know why though as i always found figured bass straight forward.

Well, if you've decided a chord is a first inversion (e.g. IIb), then the figure will be 6 underneath the chord. A root position will be 5 although you don't usually put any figure if it's root position. A second inversion will be 6/4 under the chord.

A root postion 7th chord will be 7, first inverison will be 6/5, 2nd inversion will be 4/3, third inversion will be 4/2. Hope this helps.

oh my gosh, thats quite simple really!!
thank you

Ok so i've had a go at it. I think i've completely messed it up..

But here it is..
I have started figuring at the begining of bar 4 [hence the symbol] and have left the 5/3 blanks and writen all the other figures in shorthand. I have tried to add the correct suspensions/cadences.

Could anyone have a look at this for me please and tell me what they think?
Sorry its so big...



Thanks.

Very briefly and only one or two comments:

bar 4 beat 1 - I'd make this a root position chord i.e chord of F
bar 9 beat 3 - I'd make this a 1st inversion chord - 6 under the bass line
bar 10 beat 1 - I'd make this one a root position chord too

Try playing it - do you play piano? Put the full chords in as you've written them and see how it sounds. I always use the rule to keep it as simple as possible.

thank you!
really do appreciate it

I do fiddle around on the piano but i'm not too good at moving from chord to chord quickly! But i'm slowly teaching myself piano.

I've been looking at this and a couple of things for you to note:

care is needed on your sevenths

sevenths must be approached and quitted by step

look earlier on where this occurs

eg. bar 12 beat 1 cannot be a seventh because there is a leap to the f. the second chord in that bar, I would use a II7b

care is also needed on your suspensions are they:

1)prepared ie. same note is written/sounded as what you want to suspend
2) suspended ie sustained/ repeated note
3)resolved ie. resolution usually downwards to a harmony note of the chord

there is also a sequence so you can use that to figure your chords (bar 10)