I've just got the theory books out again as am going to have a crack at grade 7 next year and it got me thinking about the question below.

I know to some extent we are unlikely to use in practice all the theory that you learn for the theory exams, but given how completely unlikely most musicians are to use figured bass why is so much time devoted to learning it in theory exams?

It really does give you an insight into how chords work and helps you to analyse what you see on the page too. In the baroque age every performance of any work with a figured bass would have been different, according to the skills of the player and we have lost so much when we use standard editions now.

I used to ask the same question, but I am now required to learn to realize a figured bass as part of a course in practical harmony that I'm enrolled on - and it is teaching me that my knowledge of harmony is much more superficial and less thorough than I thought.

If I ever reach the stage of being able to flay fluently and correectly from a figured bass (even if not especially brilliantly) THEN I'll be able to claim some understanding of harmony.

I agree.

In general our way of learning/approaching harmony is far too superficial and not practical enough. Figured bass gives a much greater understanding and playing it is, I have found, the only real way to understand good harmonic movement.

Figured bass is an excellent example of the development of the "horizontal" line based music of baroque and earlier counterpoint into the more harmonic "vertical" approach that was to come. it gives insight into both methods of construction and so is a useful thing to understand.

Few of us need to be able to play from figured bass, but understanding it allows you to play in accordance with the composer's intentions from an edition whose editor misrepresents them.

Figured bass, just like guitar chords or Roman numerals, is a shorthand for indicating harmony. All three systems have their pros and cons, and an understanding of all three puts you as a very flexible and versatile musician. I use fig bass when accompanying exam and concert pupils, as many so called 'performing editions' of Baroque music contain such dull and uninspired realisations of fig bass (and in some cases, wrong). I also use it as a shorthand for compositions and arrangements, for instance, most of my scrap copies of last verse harmonisations for hymns are in melody/bass line/fig bass shorthand.