User talk:Basemetal/drafts


 * As to the proper usage it is as follows (and anyone reading this is welcome to go to my sandbox where I collected some sample articles backing what I am saying here): the term "basso continuo" or "thorough bass", in standard usage, does not designate an instrument or a group of instruments. It is a performance and compositional practice and (normally shortened to "continuo") it indicates the continuo part in scores). The group of instruments that perform the "continuo part" are the "continuo group" or the "continuo" or the "continuo instruments" (in the plural) and their players are the "continuo players" (again in the plural). The "continuo group" is composed of, on the one hand, a harmonic instrument (organ, harpsichord, but not necessarily a keyboard instrument, it can be a harp, a teorbo, a lute, etc.) called the "continuo instrument" (in the singular) and its player is called the "continuo player" (again in the singular). The "continuo group" is composed, on the other hand, of one or several bass instruments that perform the bass line as written or at the lower octave.
 * The table of instruments is confusing at a basic level: it seems to be treating the "b.c." group as a different group of instruments. But the instruments of the continuo group are taken from some of the instruments of the other columns. It is their usage that makes them continuo instruments at the time when they are playing the continuo part. The best would be to get rid of the "b.c." column in the instrumentation table because it does not add any information but on the contrary confuses the issue.
 * Then the table of instruments is wrong: the lutes shouldn't be in the "b.c." column. In BWV 118 they sometime double the continuo bass but sometimes play their own obbligato parts. (Look at the score). The source of that error is to be found in the confusing way of treating "b.c." as a distinct group of instruments. Besides, of course, it is wrong in that timpani are not brass instruments so the name of that column ought to be "brass and timpani". The name of the "keyboards" column should be "harspichord, organ and lute" and the "lutes" from the "b.c." column should go there, and as I said the "b.c." column should be ditched. Signed: Basemetal00 ( write to me here) 00:11, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Issue with sorting the table by BWV — Preceding unsigned comment added by Basemetal00 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 28 November 2012 (UTC)