Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

[Clef_de_fa]

That sound like it, but if it was Baroque based maybe it's use was for string quartets. Also being that far back, maybe it has found its way into modern music in another form. Like a chord chart gives information, but the the interpretation is the players, maybe it was passed over for that idea and slash chords.... Or that's what it became for the single performer with more polyphonic instruments being developed that could play such ideas?

Yeah it could be it. The only use that I remember was for harpsichord. Especially when the harpsichord was accompagning a solo instrument.

 

[Russell L]

Well sort of.... but not always as it limits possibilites, it depends where you move the note to rather than its interval, but you have me dragging into the depths of my mind to try and order info I have not even thought about in over thirty years concerning "Figured Bass". Inversions In music are a multi- faceted subject depending on how much you know. For example the root note is not always used as the lowest note to be played first or last, the inversion of an interval will change it into something else etc etc. So much in music can be inverted with startling results.

But the point I was making in stating permutations and inversions is how to expand from a simple premise, again it was just an example to show how three notes can be viewed. That part is easy to grasp as inversions of a parent triad are only two, we treat the parent triad as already being present and it is not an inversion as such, it is the parent triad, so i used C and the intervals of 3 and 5 which relate to the 3rd ( E) and 5th (G) of C.

Now the bit I am trying to drag out of my depths is the of "Figured Bass" which I covered in my orchestral days, so that is where the permutations of numbers come in and are used with a single note, a sort of tab/standard notation system.
In this concept a single note was written in SN on the staff and a number or series of numbers written under it, so for a triad it would, look like a fraction 3/5, but all it tells me the inversion to be used or can be used, so 3/5 would be root from the written note with the 3rd and the 5th. Now this gave way to using inversions to change key from the same root, so 3/5 over the root would be major, but 5/3 over the same root would imply minor......maybe.
3/7 I think means a major 7th where as 7/11........ Well not sure now whether I am just inventing ideas out of the mists of time in my brain.

Now this is hazy for me, so anyone else feel free to step in and correct me on the subject of "Figured Bass" and it's use, if any to modern music.

I believe in some figured bass notation the idea was to allow the player to choose what combinations they could play from a given note by the use of numbers under the note hence the name "Figured Bass.... so it was prudent to learn all permutations of any given triad. ( I will use the word permutations so as not to be bogged down in the Symantec's of words and meanings as seems to be happening )m

Now I could google " Figured Bass" and see what comes up but I will just for my own reasons try and figure out what it was all about, like I said its over thirty years ago, and it would be interesting to see if any others have come across it, which I'm sure there will be amongst those that have studied Baroque music will testify to.
Strange I was going to write" orchestral music" but then the idea it was a Baroque thing came to me, so that puts me to thinking JS Bach for sure, Vivaldi, and Purcell as composers that would have used it.....depends when it was fashionable.

And now we have expanded to yet another idea, of valid, all from the one concept...which was what my original post was about. But in Figured bass you will need a foundation in more than just inversions of triads, you will,as I think about it, need to draw on your own ideas and experience....as sort of improvisation, but not free...more guided, but still open to interpretation by the player to influence the outcome of how it may sound and play.

Yeah, Ferg, I remember studying figured bass. Like you, I can't remember how it all went. But, seems to me it was to tell the player which inversion was to be played, and that was about it. I don't think it changed the chord though, just the inversion. The numbers were stacked one over the other under a note on the staff. They told what the intervals were. I've forgotten it mostly because there's no use of it nowadays, as far as I know. (Lordy, I graduated college in 1976, four years later than I was supposed to).

 

[Roscoe East]

Sure, it changes the way it sounds, but it doesn't change the harmony is what I mean. It's still a C chord in root position. See what I mean?

You could add other Cs, Es, and Gs all over the place above that one lowest C note, and it would still be a C chord in root position. Still just three notes, no matter what octave they're in. As long as there's a C in the bottom, it's root position. Same principle applies to the other inversions.

This seems like a question of Which Filter Are You Looking Through? Or perhaps Which Generalization Is Most Important To You? Or really, What Resolution Is Your Microscope Set To?

Because yes, at one (and really, only one) architectonic level you are absolutely correct.

But all you have to do is back off the resolution of your virtual microscope just a hair, or zoom in just a hair, and the qualities you identify and/or importance you ascribe to them change.

In the former case (backing off the resolution a hair) a C triad is a C triad, period...regardless of what inversion it's in. Any combination of C, E, G in any order, any register, will convey "C Major Triad", done.

In the latter case (zooming in a hair), it suddenly becomes important not just which note of that C Major Triad is in the bass, but also how the other notes are stacked intervallically above that...and if you zoom in just a RCH further, now it becomes important not just the intervals above the root, but also their absolute placement with regard to octave (i.e., compound intervals are not equivalent).

Because all of those qualities define how we hear harmony; it's just a question of which of those qualities we're listening for at any given time.

 

[fishdreams]

My question(s) in the original post was kindly aimed at folks who claim they want to be better players, not to discuss anybody's art. Jeff's commentary to me seems to be the plain & basic truth. If you want to become a better player, find a good teacher who teaches factual elements that make up harmony, melody, and rhythm."

I just cant wrap my head around why one would pay for lessons yet deny this as the truth in favor of "snake oil lessons" or as Snarf said I try to tell them this is what you need to know they ignore him in favor of being shown how to play songs.

Also could anybody explain how did the New Methods come to be?? Like "Groove Lessons" Did Bootsy, Rocco Prestia or Paul Jackson take Groove Lessons.? How did TAB, a 1500's era Lute notation, crop back up & take the place of written music for guitar & bass guitar?

Well, the answer to your question (assuming it was not as rhetorical a question as it seemed to me) is that Jeff's definition is wrong, plain and simple. (As in "music academics is the learning of factual elements that make up harmony, melody, and rhythm." ). Presenting music theory as a set of "factual elements" is selling snake oil.

There are no "factual elements" that make up harmony, melody and rhythm. There are musical theories put together after the fact to make teaching easy for teachers. They can be useful tools, but figments of the imagination they still are.
They are at best, concepts, within one can choose to work or not to work, to acknowledge, ignore or base one's own variations upon.

If we want to talk factual elements where music is concerned, maybe we should talk acoustics, or psycho acoustics.

My theoretically well-versed teachers do not teach these 'factual elements'. They had long-term working relationships with Lennie Tristano, Max Roach, Roy Eldridge, Misha Mengelberg, Olivier Messiaen. That is a pedigree I feel privileged to pay for.

Jeff Berlin is very adept at playing arpeggios. A thing to admire. But Jeff Berlin speaks for the music of Jeff Berlin only.

 

[BassyBill]

Sure, it changes the way it sounds, but it doesn't change the harmony is what I mean. It's still a C chord in root position. See what I mean?

You could add other Cs, Es, and Gs all over the place above that one lowest C note, and it would still be a C chord in root position. Still just three notes, no matter what octave they're in. As long as there's a C in the bottom, it's root position. Same principle applies to the other inversions.

I see what you mean. Yeah, it's still "root position". But it's not the same thing at all. CGE sounds just as different to CEG as EGC or GCE does, if not more. Even though it doesn't "change the harmony" (the sense in which inversions do that or don't do that is a whole other topic).

That open 10th in root position has a flavour all its own. Listen to Chick Corea use it and you'll see what I mean.

I gues what I'm saying is, the most important thing about a triad isn't necessarily which note is on the bottom, in terms of how it sounds musically. Permutations matter and there are more than three ways of playing a C major.

Not a major issue (no pun intended). But I was a little curious how you made a point about there just being three inversions, as if the other permutations were somehow exactly the same thing, when clearly they're not.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Figured Bass

Wrote out ideas and theory using figured bass theory as i remembered. I thought about it in the spare time i had today, then looked it up on linethis evening.
As i thought miles off the mark with my ideas, but not to far away with its use.

Figured Bass - what it is, and how it works

Best described as a "cheat sheet" in this link ( which was the best out of the few i checked out ). As i thought its use is pretty obsolete today because SN, and better still, chord sheets have replaced its use.
Basically they were an early slash chord notation.

For me it passed some time thinking this over and trying to remember Figured Bass theory, but that's all its worth a bit of fun to compare what was and what is....but good to see how the idea was used and what developed from it as music developed and over took it.

 

[Russell L]

I see what you mean. Yeah, it's still "root position". But it's not the same thing at all. CGE sounds just as different to CEG as EGC or GCE does, if not more. Even though it doesn't "change the harmony" (the sense in which inversions do that or don't do that is a whole other topic).

That open 10th in root position has a flavour all its own. Listen to Chick Corea use it and you'll see what I mean.

I gues what I'm saying is, the most important thing about a triad isn't necessarily which note is on the bottom, in terms of how it sounds musically. Permutations matter and there are more than three ways of playing a C major.

Not a major issue (no pun intended). But I was a little curious how you made a point about there just being three inversions, as if the other permutations were somehow exactly the same thing, when clearly they're not.

There are actually only two inversions of a triad--- first inversion and second inversion. Or, that is, there are only three ways to play triadic harmony---root position, first inversion, and second inversion. It doesn't matter how many roots, thirds, and fifths you have or how far apart they are. As far as classification goes, what matters is what note is on bottom. You could have 1-5-8-10 (CGCE) and it's still root position triadic harmony. 3-8-10-12 (ECEG) is still first inversion traidic harmony. 5-8-12-17 (GCGE) is, too. That's all I'm saying. They do all sound different, though, as you also have pointed out. True, and I agree. There can be many different permutations, as you say.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

There are actually only two inversions of a triad--- first inversion and second inversion. Or, that is, there are only three ways to play triadic harmony---root position, first inversion, and second inversion.

Not quite, there's closed position triads, as you've outlined, but there are also open position triads.