ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by the dominant

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seventh chord. Lord of all seven chords ruler of the house of seventh, holding

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dominion over all chords seven, okay you get the picture here's our question [Lord V holding a number 7]

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what figured bass symbol best describes the above chord and

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here are your potential answers.... alrighty well let's dive right in

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figured bass was musical shorthand used by Baroque era musicians to indicate

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what notes in intervals to play above a baseline it's not commonly used in [Man playing a piano]

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modern times presumably because no one thought to say if it ain't broke don't

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fix it and just to be sure it's fresh in your mind let's take a second to review [Example of chords]

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inversions because nothing's worse than rotting inversion they're right up there [Inversions rotting in a fridge]

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with spoiled milk and old seafood. So we know that inversions are chords whose

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lowest note is not the tonic a first inversion chord has the third as its [An inversion chord]

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lowest note a second inversion cord has the fifth as its lowest note and a

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third inversion chord which only applies to seventh chords has the seven as its

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lowest note well those inversions are signified in figured bass by a pair of

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numbers describing the intervals between the bottom note and the two other notes [Number intervals for inversions]

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in the chord, for example a 6-4 inversion on G major which starts on the 5th

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describes the resulting perfect forth between D and G and the major 6 between [6-4 inversion with inversions and a man appears]

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D and B let's take a look at our example chord which is a G dominant 7th chord

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inverted to start on the 7th well right away this eliminates answer D because

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the 64 inversion refers to a second inversion diatonic triad not a seventh

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chord. Six-four over an out good buddy right? Is that how it goes? Well that could [A boy in a lorry using a walky-talkie to communicate to another lorry driver]

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explain why our career as a trucker never took off. Alright well now we know

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we're looking for the corrected version of a seventh chord to find that let's [Seventh chord hiding in a tree]

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count the intervals of our example chord from the bottom up from F to G is a

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second and from F to B is a fourth well that means the correct answer is B; Four

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Two, this figured bass marking describes the intervals in a third inversion [A four, two interval]

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seventh chord Answer A 4, 3 refers to a seventh chord in

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second inversion which would start on the fifth while answer C; 6, 5 refers to a

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seven chord in first inversion which would start on the third. Hey, figured bass

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is actually pretty helpful we kind of think they should bring it Bach to the [Man playing a piano quickly]

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future... 6, 4 - Over and out.

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