Hi,

Firstly - I promise not to "spam" the board with lods of questions...honest!

Reading through the ABRSM Gr 6 theory Syllabus it says you need to only "recognise" and not use the Figured Bass for 7th chords..but where are these likely to crop up ?


In Q1b I conclude that you don't need to "use" them if deciding to answer the question with figures ? and seeing as you are providing the figured bass you don't need to "recognise" them here.

In Q2 (filling in upper harmony from given figured bass), the ABRSM Theory Workbook states only 53, 63, 64 figures will be given plus any accidentals from minor keys, so figured 7ths won't occur here either.

Q3 is the melody, so I wouldn't use figured bass here.

Q4 and Q5 is the only place left, but usually you get a score of some sort rather than figured bass - is this a good assumption ?

So only Q4 and Q5 seem to be the place where figured 7ths *may* occcur - anyone seen any past papers with figured bass in the given score ?

Cheers

I looked into this when I took G6 last autumn and in the AB (Big 7 on the front) book it says you only need root and first and second inversion in the figured bass question. I guess that if you decide to use figured bass to answer the harmony question then you'd need 7th too.

Now I'm preparing for G7 I can't think why I was bothered about figuring my 7th anyway - it's probably worth just getting to grips with them now but be reasurred that they won't come up in the figured bass question. I can't see where they might occur either - perhaps there might be some figuring on Q4 one day?

Yes - thats my understanding, and thanks for confirming re Q2. I will learn them but probably not to the same level and "speed" as the others unless I have loads of time - knowing me it will probably only confuse to learn them all at once, better stick with simpler ones first for the Gr 6 requirements, then I'll look at them for use in cadences if I do Q1b (probably do Q1a though so it won't matter)

Thankyou

Ok - just to prolong this one a bit - I started looking at Figured Bass for 7th chords, and it was ok until I thought to myself "are we talking dominant 7ths or major 7ths here ? "

Google provided a few examples where it is obvious that it is dom 7ths that have the normal figured bass notation "7" for root voicing, "65" for a first inversion etc.

However, I couldn't find (surprisding on google!) an example of how a maj7th would be notated in figured bass.

From first principles would it be something like a simple "7#" ?

(I would have thought though, that they would wouldl be very far and few between in the kind of music that uses figured bass anyway).

Won't it depend on the key and the bass note?
If you have a key signature of D major, a bass note D and the figure is 7 then it will be a major 7th.

Ah - good point, so the quality of "7" is given by as you say the key and bass note - just like the quality of the "3" is either major or minor, but still written as 3 (if it is written of course).

Ok, I geddit now.

Cheers.