Exercise

Bass 316 — Unfigured: the octave rule, minor descending

Unfigured bassD minorunfigured bass

Corpus id bass-316 · cite this id — it is permanent

What it teaches

The bare minor descent: you have played this exact bass with its figures printed — now supply them yourself, remembering which accidental belongs to which chord.

The given bass

4/4	bar 1	bar 2	bar 3	bar 4	bar 5	bar 6	bar 7	bar 8
Bass	D4	C4	B♭3	A3	G3	F3	E3	D3
Figures	5/3	6	6	#	#4/2	6	#6/4/3	5/3

The given bass — unfigured: the student supplies the figures (D minor, 4/4; ⌒ = tied from the previous note)

The model realization

4/4	bar 1	bar 2	bar 3	bar 4	bar 5	bar 6	bar 7	bar 8
Soprano	D5	E5	G5	A5	A5	A5	A5	A5
Alto	A4	A4	D5	C♯5	C♯5	D5	C♯5	D5
Tenor	F4	E4	D4	E4	E4	D4	G4	F4
Bass	D4	C4	B♭3	A3	G3	F3	E3	D3
Figures	5/3	6	6	#	#4/2	6	#6/4/3	5/3

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

The unfigured minor descent is an examination in one question: do the raised tones belong to the scale or to a chord? Supply naturals down the scale and the harmony is right; supply the sharp wherever the dominant functions as a dominant, and only there, and the figures you write will match the ones the corpus taught.

At the keyboard

This realization is choral — the upper voices exceed a single hand’s span. The test of the descent is the accidentals: natural sixth and seventh degrees on the way down, and a sharp only where the true dominant stands — on the fifth degree and over its inversions. Carry it into A minor, G minor, C minor.

Voice-leading patterns this exercise drills

Cite this exercise

Gradus Figured-Bass Corpus, bass-316 — Unfigured: the octave rule, minor descending. v1.0. https://gradusmusic.com/figured-bass-corpus/exercise/bass-316

Corpus v1.0 · licensed CC-BY-4.0 · machine-readable at /api/v1/figured-bass/exercises/bass-316

Loading…