Exercise

Bass 301 — Modulation to the relative major

ModulationA minor

Corpus id bass-301 · cite this id — it is permanent

What it teaches

From minor to the relative major: no new accidental at all — the ♯ simply stops coming, and the unraised seventh becomes the new dominant’s root.

The given bass

4/4	bar 1		bar 2		bar 3		bar 4		bar 5
Bass	A2		E3	A2	D3		G2		C3
Figures			#				7

The given bass and its figures (A minor, 4/4; ⌒ = tied from the previous note)

The model realization

4/4	bar 1	bar 2		bar 3	bar 4	bar 5
Soprano	E4	E4	E4	F4	F4	E4
Alto	C4	B3	C4	D4	D4	C4
Tenor	A3	G♯3	A3	A3	B3	G3
Bass	A2	E3	A2	D3	G2	C3
Figures		#			7

The model realization (A minor, 4/4; ⌒ = tied from the previous note)

Minor’s relative major is the one modulation that costs nothing: every tone is already in hand. The subdominant pivots — iv at home, ii in the new key — and then G, the very tone the ♯ kept raising, arrives unraised in the bass carrying a seventh, and it is a dominant. The student who has wondered why minor must keep asking for its leading tone now hears the answer: stop asking, and the music slides home to the relative major of its own weight.

At the keyboard

The three upper voices of the model realization fit under one hand. Watch what does NOT happen: after the first cadence, no more sharps. G natural walks in as an ordinary bass note and turns out to be a dominant. The absence is the event. Carry it into D minor, E minor.

Voice-leading patterns this exercise drills

Cite this exercise

Gradus Figured-Bass Corpus, bass-301 — Modulation to the relative major. v1.0. https://gradusmusic.com/figured-bass-corpus/exercise/bass-301

Corpus v1.0 · licensed CC-BY-4.0 · machine-readable at /api/v1/figured-bass/exercises/bass-301

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