Exercise

Bass 313 — Flat submediant deception

Chromatic figuresC major

Corpus id bass-313 · cite this id — it is permanent

What it teaches

The deceptive resolution onto the flattened submediant: V7 rises a semitone into a chord the key never owned — ♭5 in the figures, the third doubled, the refusal darker than vi could make it.

The given bass

4/4	bar 1		bar 2		bar 3		bar 4		bar 5
Bass	C3		F3	G2	A♭2	A♭2	G2		C3
Figures				7	b5	6	7

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

The model realization

4/4	bar 1	bar 2		bar 3		bar 4	bar 5
Soprano	E4	F4	F4	E♭4	F4	F4	E4
Alto	C4	C4	B3	C4	C4	B3	C4
Tenor	G3	A3	G3	C4	C4	G3	G3
Bass	C3	F3	G2	A♭2	A♭2	G2	C3
Figures			7	b5	6	7

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

The deceptive close, borrowed darker: the bass rises its semitone onto ♭6̂, the leading tone rises home, and the seventh falls one honest step onto E♭ — the ♭5 the figures announce. The third is doubled, as deception’s grammar requires; then the 5–6 exchange turns the borrowed chord toward the subdominant’s color, the ♭6 falls back to the dominant, and the second try tells the truth.

At the keyboard

The three upper voices of the model realization fit under one hand. The seventh falls as it always must — but it falls onto E flat, a tone from another world. Hold the fourth chord a moment before moving on: this is the Romantic century’s favorite door. Carry it into G major, F major.

Voice-leading patterns this exercise drills

Cite this exercise

Gradus Figured-Bass Corpus, bass-313 — Flat submediant deception. v1.0. https://gradusmusic.com/figured-bass-corpus/exercise/bass-313

Corpus v1.0 · licensed CC-BY-4.0 · machine-readable at /api/v1/figured-bass/exercises/bass-313

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