Abstract
‘Figured Tone’ is a proposed method for numbering each tone of the melody or bassline to indicate a complete summary of the vertical harmony including the bassline or melody – whichever is not notated. Thoroughbass or figured bass has been used by composers and musicians generally for hundreds of years to indicate the harmony on top of a bassline. The advantage of this extended system of figured bass is that with a single line of music (the bass part) and a few numbers on top of some or most of the notes, a performer can read and play the entire supporting harmony for a piece of music. However, the melody or top part of the texture is not encoded in the thoroughbass figures. Figured Tone is an attempt to approach such harmonic summarization from the top down as well as the bottom up, with the result that the “thorough bass” can be indicated along with the melody, or the top melodic pitches included within the extended figured bass. The additional advantage is that the function of the melody tone in the chord is indicated as well as the inversion of the chord. The roadmap for Figured Tone is to integrate it into and alongside existing harmonic notational systems such as the ‘Rule of the Octave’, the Roman numerals of Western functional harmony, the Nashville Numbering System, the similar numbering of ‘In Goede Harmonie’, and jazz chordal notation. With Figured Tone, it should be possible to provide a complete accompaniment of a melody line from figures, or to enable the complete realization of a figured bass with the melody tones on top, as well as aiding understanding of the harmonic context of a melody – particularly useful for singers and string players where contextual functional tuning is essential.
A method for figuring each tone of the melody or bassline to indicate a complete summary of the vertical harmony including the bassline or melody (whichever is not notated).