Mondo Knows Facts
Baroque music ran on a bass line and chords
The continuo filled in harmony from a figured bass Keyboard and lute players improvised chords above a written bass, guided by numbers marking the intervals. The arrangement let ensembles flex around soloists without written parts for every instrument. Trained continuo players are specialists today. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: baroque, harmony, performance
Baroque music ran on a bass line and chords: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The continuo filled in harmony from a figured bass. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.