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Fair enough. I like the practicality of the Partimento guys. It’s about making music.
Originally Posted by BWV
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03-11-2022 03:17 PM
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Ok this is a bit rough, but this is my realisation of Fenaroli IV, 5 heavily cribbed from Ewald D and pruning out the repeated bass notes for now
I’m slowly being nudged in the direction of imitative counterpoint. Thanks Fedele.
However; this realisation is highly composed, here’s the score more or less for examination and in case anyone fancies having a go playing it
Fenarolli_book_IV,_5_guitar_realisation-1.pdf
and in doing it I am coming up sharply against the limits of how well I can play composed music lol.
I will try and post more improvised things as well.
btw one thing I’m coming against with these partimenti is how little they tend to venture into the money bass notes on the guitar. Everything’s quite mid range. I think I’m going to do a bit more judicious octave transposition from now on.
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So I'm back to working with the book and have started from the start again.
The Page One is not a problem although I should take it through the 12 keys. Anyhow I decided to check out how other people play the Descending 7-6 (guitarists in particular).
It seems to me that although people call their piece a figuration prelude they don't play this sequence in their composition.
Are you guys playing the Descending 7-6 after the Page One?
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Really nice realisation! I think it’s good to make a few composed versions of a bass line, and eventually crisscross parts between the versions to simply reassemble the composed parts in real time. Looking forward to hearing more and to also hear what it will sound like when you transpose the bass notes. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Another thing I thought about, have you noticed any similarities between partimento and Barry Harris’ teachings? I haven’t worked too much on Barry’s stuff but the whole focus on practicality at least seems to overlap.
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Good to hear that you’re back! You can play the 7-6 in lots of ways, I really like it and use it a lot. In the unmeasured fantasia I posted in the beginning of the thread I played a descending 7-6 on top of a dominant pedal tone starting around 0:31. It’s a 7-6 in E minor with the note B in the bass. Originally Posted by Liarspoker
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Yeah probably a good way to do it, although I tend to go improv —> composition myself. I come up with something workable just on the instrument and then if I write it down all sorts of stuff suggests itself which probably makes it better musically but also much harder to play. Originally Posted by Chimechord
I’ll probably move on to another book IV parti next, there’s a lot of overlap between these partis
Re: Barry I went to his classes on and off for about fifteen years. You’re not wrong, and the contrapuntal mindset is similar. You could totally realise parti using his 8 note scales and I think get a really romantic result. I tried a little bit and it was pretty promising.
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Yeah I used these Schemata. This is what I did for his exercise, sticking to it… I think it’s all three voices like the book, which works well on guitar. Originally Posted by Liarspoker
I use very simple shell voicings and jump octaves where it seems helpful to do so. Now I think I might space the chord differently, with a bigger gap between the bass and the top voices.
with arpeggios it’s a hard one. More interesting arpeggio patterns require bigger chords, more voices. The 7-6 becomes more like an inverted backcycling progression if you put it into 4 voices. With Bach and stuff the fingering is actually complex… I think you can be a little relaxed about parallels but even so it can take some working out; it’s not just ‘grip’ ‘grip’ ‘grip’…
TBH when improvising a prelude I’d be more likely to use some variation of the RO for a descending bassline, or continue the 6 4 2 - 6 3 chain. (Lot of that in Fenaroli and Bach of course)
Bach often hangs out on a static chord while descending the bass.
So I can’t think of too many strict figuration preludes from my limited knowledge that do this…. But I’m sure there’s some.
otoh melodic embellishment is very fertile ground.
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Yes, I'll stick with the method as outlined in the book for the moment.
Today I jumped to chapter 10 Partimento but found that I didn't know the RO so went back to chapter 4.
Theoretically I learned a lot but more importantly I can now play a simple RO prelude in both major and minor.
I did all this at the table while my eldest was doing homework/ projects. We are home alone this weekend. Bliss
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Hehe well how about that
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@Liarspoker
Bach is using a descending 7-6 sequence in this figuration prelude:
It starts at 0:45 (beat three of the bar) and ends at 0:52. There is a pedal point going on at the same time, but in the voices on top are playing it. In this style of music you stop measuring intervals from the bass when there is a pedal point and instead you count based on the lowest voice on top of the pedal point. D is in the bottom, seventh on top going down to sixth, D going down to C and so on.
Nice! I guess also the fact that Barry has one harmonic system and another one for melodic stuff might be similar to the differentiation of partimento and solfeggio. This video on solfeggio blew my mind, it’s a really interesting subject: Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Good shout! Thats a nice pattern. Originally Posted by Chimechord
Also it has the paired Monte/Fonte Romanesca schema for the opening which is my favourite … here’s John M breaking it down (you probably know this vid)
yeah it’s mega - I just wish his book was as practical as the interview! (It’s quite concerned with historical sources etc as you can imagine and is very interesting, just not a ‘how to solfeggio’ book.)Nice! I guess also the fact that Barry has one harmonic system and another one for melodic stuff might be similar to the differentiation of partimento and solfeggio. This video on solfeggio blew my mind, it’s a really interesting subject:
Maybe he’ll write another. I gather Sanguinetti might be working on a more ‘how to’ book, not that his book is crammed with great resources. But most of the first run of these books are necessarily ‘making the case’ to the classical music theory establishment as much as transmitting the info… which is why the Mortensen book is so unique …
one thing I was surprised he didn’t mention is how the RO kind of does devide the scale up into hexachords. Use of 6 b5 and 6 #4 2 etc can be tied to various hexachordal scale mutations.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-20-2022 at 04:50 AM.
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I haven’t read his book yet, but yeah, it would be really nice with a more practical guide. Gjerdingen, in the section about solfeggio on partimenti.org, suggests that solfeggio might be useful as instrumental exercises for advanced instrumentalists as well. I started looking at C.P.E. Bach’s Solfeggio in Cm today - really fun and straight forward as long as you make octave jumps when necessary. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Could you explain in more detail how you interpret RO as hexachords? I imagine it might be super useful for modulations!Last edited by Chimechord; 03-21-2022 at 10:59 AM. Reason: Spelling
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Thanks for the videos guys. They are super interesting and am learning loads.
Would love to have the books by Baragwanath, Gjerdingen, Sanguinetti and Fenaroli but they aren't cheap
There's no rush though as I'm still working through the Mortensen book.
Which Partimento books do you think are the most practical?
Edit. Looks like I'll have to improve my solfege too. Imagine three years of singing before even being allowed to touch your instrument.
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Sanguinetti is the most use for sure - get that one. Even then I would say the patterns etc - I rarely refer to this book directly. There’s loads of stuff online. Originally Posted by Liarspoker
Thanks for the videos guys. They are super interesting and am learning loads.
Would love to have the books by Baragwanath, Gjerdingen, Sanguinetti and Fenaroli but they aren't cheap
There's no rush though as I'm still working through the Mortensen book.
Which Partimento books do you think are the most practical?
Theres quite a lot of resources on Schemata online so I’d say Music in the Gallant style is less important. It’s somewhat useful to be able to spot basic Schemata in partimento because it suggests melodies to go along with the bass. But I don’t think you need gjerdingens book to understand this stuff; it’s just LEGO bricks if you know what I mean. Google ‘gallant Schemata’. I get the impression this is more a stand in for Solfeggio training more than the ‘authentic’ way to do it. But it’s what Ewald is using in his videos.
All the Fenaroli you need is online at partimenti.org for free
Baragwanath is interesting but not a fully realised method unless I’m missing something. I suspect it would be better to get lessons….
I’m planning to go through all the Mozart arias I used to sing and see if I can work out the underlying syllables. At the same time the suggestion of using solfeggi (also on partimenti.org) as partimenti is a really good one.
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yeah, mi-fa is 6 to 5 3 or 6 b5 to 5 3 Originally Posted by Chimechord
re is usually 6 (maybe 6 4)
fa is often 5 3 or 6 5 but when descending to 6 mi is often a 2 chord; maybe #4 2
Generally a more consonant chord follows a dissonant one; this affects things too…
you can see you the ROs organise themselves in this way. But if I want to make a cadence strong I prepare with a #4 2 on fa to a 6 mi and so on.
Hard to explain it just feels like I’m focusing in on the mi fa and fa mi chords most of the time. The Fenaroli unfigured basses seem exercises in fluent scale mutation. Often I have to hear them to hear where the sharps and flats (or solefge syllables) go.
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I’m not sure I follow. The solmisation syllables are for the melodies, right? You could harmonise the same melody in various ways - mi fa as melody in the C hexachord could be harmonised as 5 going to 6 on top of an A bass, as you would in let’s say the beginning of a 7-6 sequence. Mi fa in the G hexachord could be seen as a part of a cantizans (7-1) that could be harmonised with corresponding altizans and tenorizans. Or you can just use the bassizans, or start a 7-6 sequence on the an E bass note etc. There’s so many possibilities. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Dunno, that just seems how it’s panning out for a lot of these early book IV thingies. There’s a lot more Originally Posted by Chimechord
sruff, but I talking about the RO type things which are quite limited I guess? Cadences are handled differently
I just see harmonies in the bass as following these sorts of hexachordal patterns. In the early partimenti all you have to work with is the bass anyway; spotting the obvious cadences is the first step as far as I can see and after that it’s working out what’s going on with the scale mutations, then applying the rules.
In terms of the melody, a lot of stuff in these partimenti resolves to the 3rd of the target chord (Fonte, Monte) for instance so you just bass your counterpoint/chordde grippe on that. I play a 6 chord with the 6 on top going to b5, moving up a half step to a 5 3 with the 3 on top in contrary motion and this will be a very typical move - just look at the Schemata diagrams for fonte and Monte (and for that matter the fonte romanesca). Which you can then embellish of course.
The #4 2 often crops ups as a pre cadential chord to consolidate a sense of tonality/hexachord before an emphatic cadence usually when you get 4-3-4-5-1 in the bass maybe after a sequence or sommat; so the first 4 is a #4 2 fa-mi and I’ll often make the 3 a 6 b5 too, strong mi-fa. The second Fa is a 6 5 there of course which gets us into the cadence counterpoint proper.
And it’s a common move into other keys (‘dominant’ or ‘subdominant’ say via ‘secondary dominant’) when descending, Fenaroli has rules for this and the clue is the syncopated long bass note, so you set up a ‘fa-mi’ using that chord. Not the only way to do it, but I find thinking along those lines quite natural.
I’m not sure that this necessarily clashes with the idea of solfeggio for the melody. Fa chord has mi in the treble if you want it and vice versa and these are the big notes for ‘’secondary dominants’; on the other hand these chromatic harmonies aren’t always the one you want but that’s another story.
you have to know your norms. Thinking La-sol-fa-mi in melody against fa-mi-re-do in the bass for example. A 6 #4 2 chord is not going to work on the fa bass even though I might put one there in other cases. But then the melody is parallel 3rds/10ths so you fill in accordingly.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-21-2022 at 06:00 PM.
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I'm still on the rule of the octave and playing and working out the examples in the Mortensen book. Lots of fun.
Here's a little bit that I was messing with today.
I think for basic Partimento I need to add some cadence's but I'll work through the RO chapter first.
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Lovely stuff! that gets you a long way I would say; definitely look at the first two Fenaroli Book 1 partimenti. He gives you the figures so you can see how it ties together. Originally Posted by Liarspoker
it strikes me that the ROs and suspension chains (ie 7-6, 8-9 etc) are all designed to do the same thing, which is to break up parallelism in stepwise bass movement.
Ros by varying the chords
suspension chains by staggering the movement
for moti de bassi that move only by leap this sort of thing is much less critical and you can write only 5 3 adding suspensions as you like (ones that mix leaps and steps use a mix.)
anyway it’s a thought for general principles that can be applied to jazz harmony. Already it suggests ideas for Barry Harris (well he already thought of that), modal quartal harmony and so on.
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I recently acquired a copy of Job IJzerman's "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento." Unlike the Sanguinetti or Gjerdingen books, this doesn't attempt to give any historical background on partimenti, and just sticks straight to musical instruction.
It starts with two voices, before moving onto three, and later four. It's a very smart way of organizing the material, since it allows the reader to make connections that might otherwise have been obscured (for example, that certain schema are really just elaborations of two voice suspension patterns).
Another strength is that it uses a lot of examples from repertoire that's still actively being played. So many partimento texts draw their examples from obscure 18th century Neapolitan composers that have been forgotten by everyone except musicologists. This has some of that, as it's unavoidable, but there's also plenty of examples from Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, etc. The very last chapter even uses an example from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6.
I was very much trained in traditional tonal harmony the "usual way" -- lots of Roman numerals, all the inversions of a triad are the same chord except now they have weird interval names, don't write parallel fifths, now write a four part chorale, good luck out there. This is the textbook I wish I had. For anyone out there who wants to learn this sort of stuff, this is the way to go. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if a music major went through this book before taking their traditional harmony and counterpoint classes and really absorbed the material, they would ace those classes without breaking a sweat.
Prerequisites would be knowing how to read music, keys and key signatures, intervals and scale degrees, basic chord construction, and that's about it.
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lol Originally Posted by dasein
BTW the parti-people (Sanguinetti, Van Tour, Mortensen, Koch etc) don’t really have any problem with modern nomenclature (apart from maybe Gjerdingen who I think rather enjoys being contrarian); the main thing I get the gist of is that people simply don’t necessarily get practical hands on harmony/counterpoint training in classical music unless they luck out; it’s all theory, pen and paper rather than ‘hands on keyboard’ practice.
As a jazzer of course the pen and paper only approach doesn’t make a lick of sense. But although score-literate I’m not a score centred musician so it wouldn’t.
A friend of mine (who also plays jazz) was trying to teach the standard classical harmony syllabus - Bach chorale harmony, fux etc - in a practical, singing and playing focussed way at the local conservatoire, but in the end he was forced to do it online due to room shortages and the departments assumption that the course was purely academic and the idea that you could do this with grade exam music theory material was very much new to those kids.
Another friend who teaches at a junior academy makes sure her students play their figured bass examples. She gets it, but her musical background is even more unconventional.
These attitudes are hard to shake. Classical musicians need this sort of argument by academia from within their own tribe to even consider changing received wisdom.
This is the number one thing I learned on my music education masters and it is teeth gratingly irritating if you come from outside ‘the mainstream.’ We all feel it. So stuff which obvious to working improvisers needs to be backed up by heavy research of some kind, in this case historical. So those guys are imo fighting the good fight for a more creativity and music focussed syllabus, which partly explains why many of the books are the way they are. Of course they are also academically interested in the period, but what strikes me is how many of the parti researchers play and emphasise playing. it’s not just dry academia for the sake of it.
Someone mentioned on the forum a while back they still do the practical training at the keyboard in France. Gjerdingens second book explores why this might be the case.
The influence spread far and wide via Nadia Boulanger etc (whose students included some famous improvisers lest we forget). So, this practice I think never completely died out - for instance looking at the ABRSM Grade 8 theory book there is an exercise which is completing a trio sonata extract from a figured bass and the entries of the main voices paying attention to imitative counterpoint etc. Hmm… what does that remind me of?
the main difference in the end with partimento is the practicality of the study, the way its organised (Fenaroli is so good at this) and the sheer amount of practice.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-23-2022 at 12:03 PM.
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Too much to say but no time to say it.
Am enjoying my journey through the various chapters that the Partimento chapter is sending me to.
Here's a short prelude, no repeats, comprised of the four components in the schemata chapter.
It's such a lovely learning curve
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Duplicate post
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I bought the Job Ijzerman book a few days ago. It's a great book so far although I'm still on chapter 1.
I'm going slowly, taking notes and making up my own examples based on the text and examples in the book.
Does anyone else have the book?
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In case anyone missed it, John Mortensen’s thoughts on Fenaroli’s first partimento. I can’t remember if he covers these points in his book, but it’s good stuff
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