Jean-Philippe Rameau · section 53 of 109

Chapter ten

On the continuo bass

Do not confuse the diatonic bass progression now under discussion with the consonant progression illustrated by our examples of perfect and seventh chords. These two chords are fundamental. To demonstrate this, we shall henceforth place beneath our examples the bass we call fundamental: its notes will carry only perfect or seventh chords, while the notes of the ordinary bass, which we shall call continuo, will carry chords of every kind. Together the whole forms perfect harmony. This fundamental bass will thus serve as proof for all our works. We shall see that the different chords employed arise only from a progression opposed to that of the fundamental bass, as just explained. Yet the chords, compared with either bass, remain essentially the same. Their difference comes only from our freedom to put into the bass any one of the notes forming the fundamental chords. All the chord notes taken together remain the same, and the progression assigned to them in the fundamental chords is not thereby changed.