# Partimento



## Bwv 1080

Started reading _Music in the Galant Style_ by Robert Gjerdingen, which is an eye-opening look at 18th century music based on how musicians of the period were actually trained. The key was partimento, which involved set solutions to baselines and melodies that could then be combined into phrases and compositions. You can then see how through the mastery of these forms, 18th century composers were able to confidently create such a great volume of music. Debates here on topics like whether anyone cared about Rameu's theory or 19th century scientism like Schenker become irrelevant, the real system of 18th century music looked much more like contemporary Jazz pedagogy, where theory is internalized through stock licks and phrases which then become the language of both composition and improv

Good introductory video on the pedagogy of 18th century music


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## EdwardBast

Thanks for posting that! Great speaker, clear explanations, fascinating window into the pedagogical bases of 18thc music.


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## Bwv 1080

Thanks, here is another video - a lecture by Robert Gjerdingen which goes through a Cimarosa Oboe sonata identifying the stock forms within.




Just starting to learn about this myself, but agree with one of the comments on the video:

_I always felt something was wrong at school when we were taught harmony- I ,IV ,V chords, modulations to dominant, relative minors etc ; we were told to just go ahead and experiment..calculate the intervals to avoid parallel 5ths octaves etc.
This explains everything - thanks so much._


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## Manxfeeder

Partimento? I thought it was a typo for portamento. Hey, I learned a new word! (As a court stenographer in a city with several universities where I transcribe university disciplinary hearings, I need to know things like that.)


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## Bwv 1080

Gjerdingen talks below how modern college music theory in the US was essentially created in ivy league schools for trust fund babies to have a semester or two of music without expending the effort required to become a musician, a profession which was below their station. So instead of the hours of practice required to internalize harmony into the playing of an instrument, which was the focus of 18th century training and current Jazz pedagogy, you took the more genteel course of learning to slap some roman numerals on the chords in a Beethoven sonata during a semester at Yale. He also has some positive things to say about Schenker's thinking in figured bass and counterpoint - one of the themes here is that harmony is not separable from counterpoint - good counterpoint results in good harmony


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## EdwardBast

Another excellent thinker and speaker. ^ ^ ^

I think you meant genteel, not gentile


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## Bwv 1080

EdwardBast said:


> Another excellent thinker and speaker. ^ ^ ^
> 
> I think you meant genteel, not gentile


Well back in the day at Yale, they certainly were gentiles


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## dyross

Bwv 1080 said:


> Started reading _Music in the Galant Style_ by Robert Gjerdingen, which is an eye-opening look at 18th century music based on how musicians of the period were actually trained. The key was partimento, which involved set solutions to baselines and melodies that could then be combined into phrases and compositions. You can then see how through the mastery of these forms, 18th century composers were able to confidently create such a great volume of music. Debates here on topics like whether anyone cared about Rameu's theory or 19th century scientism like Schenker become irrelevant, the real system of 18th century music looked much more like contemporary Jazz pedagogy, where theory is internalized through stock licks and phrases which then become the language of both composition and improv
> 
> Good introductory video on the pedagogy of 18th century music


I haven't read this book, but another by the same author, and also an insight into how the "great" composers were taught, was released recently: https://global.oup.com/academic/pro...d-conservatories-9780190653590?cc=us&lang=en&


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## Roger Knox

dyross said:


> I haven't read this book, but another by the same author, and also an insight into how the "great" composers were taught, was released recently: https://global.oup.com/academic/pro...d-conservatories-9780190653590?cc=us&lang=en&


I hope these books will lead people to re-think teaching of practical music theory, analysis, and composition in our day too.


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## nikhilhogan

Great to see a thread on Partimento here! Thank you to OP for creating it. 

The Partimento community has really grown over the last year, with the Facebook Group "The Art of Partimento" growing to almost 3,000 members (2000+ in 1 year!) and many of the top scholars frequently post there, Giorgio Sanguinetti, Peter van Tour, Ewald Demeyere, John Mortensen and more. You can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/195221033967849

So far it's been observed that the best way to learn Partimento is by engaging a teacher to teach because while the rules appear simple, voice leading from chord to chord can be quite a headache if there is no guidance. Some great teachers are: Ewald Demeyere, Tobias Cramm, Matteo Messori, Peter van Tour, Derek Remeš, Lydia Carlisi, Nicole DiPaolo, Ben Katz, Johnandrew Slominski, Nicola Canzano.

What is the point of partimento? It's basically a system to teach practical composition and to teach the student to compose FAST. It's more advanced than continuo accompaniment because the end product is supposed to be a complete composition. To that end, it's also a primer for written counterpoint training.

Hope more people find these old methods intriguing!


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