# Help with learning Figured bass/basso contginuo



## obwan

Hi guys, I am stuck at the moment trying to learn to improvise divisions on a solo with figured bass accompaniment and unfortunately don't have a teacher to turn to. I appreciate any help you might be able to lend. 

My question is this: (I know its really simple please don't laught)

Do the figures represent major triads of the note marked or chords built upon the indicated note in the key of the piece? For example, in a piece writen in C major, with the basso continuo part marked e6, do you play e - g#- b - c# or e - g - b -c?

And I take it that the primary difference between baroque music and jazz is that the chord changes are generally every beat (or half beat) compared with every measure or half measure, is that right?

I'm playing a piece, where I think i got some good ideas to start with (built mostly on scales, but hey, i'm just begining ok  but i'm not sure if what I'm doing might cause some dissonances. What is the definition of a passing tone? How 'quick' does it have to be? If I have for instance a descending arpegio G - E - C -G in eigth notes as written, and I play in triple meter descending scale G - F - E - D - C - B leading into the next measure which starts on a, thats pretty straight forward right?

But what if I have G - E - F -D (eigth notes as written) with b6 and g7 in the figured bass, could I play the original melody a half step down in triple meter? that is F - G - F - E - F - E, my ears (mind you i'm playing solo) tell me its fine, but my gut instinct tells me no. The F-G-F in triple meter are all of equal length but only 1 of the notes (G) is in the chord. All else being equal the improvised melody fits well within the passage, it mimicks the feel and intensity of the original melody, and retains similar shape and contour too. In short it is very similar to the divisions composed by Jacob van Eyck. 

And what are the general guidelines pertaining to retaining the overall style, feel and rythm of the original piece? For instance is some passing dissonance not otherwise found in the original allowed? Even if its kept to a minimum? I have found that if I interject a new rythm or even a new articulation pattern late in a piece, it often fails miserably but if I introduce it early on, I can usually use it again later at any point without any problems. This is true also I think with the solo I'm working on now, I have one idea where I use a sligtly swung syncopated rythm, against a backdrop of mostly scalar divisions, if I don't start with that syncopated rythm as my first improv, it won't work, but then I can do all the other virtuso stuff, and then still come back to it later 

Do my observations make any sense?

Any more experienced musicians care to make any comments?


----------



## Sekhar

It looks like you're asking a variety of seemingly unrelated things here. First, figured bass is a notation and basso continuo is a base accompaniment that was popular in the baroque period and AFAIK hasn't been used for hundreds of years, at least in classical music (don't know about jazz). Are you sure you want to create a basso continuo accompaniment?

Also, you're asking other things like passing dissonance, by which I presume you're thinking of passing NCT (non-chord tone), which refers to leaving a chord by a step and going to the next chord also by a step in the same direction...and this is orthogonal to figured bass or basso continuo. If you could explain your work and what you'd like to accomplish, it'd really help us.


----------

