#### 3.15.11 Figured bass

LilyPond has limited support for figured bass

>          <<
>            \context Voice \notes { \clef bass dis4  c d ais }
>            \context FiguredBass \figures {
>              < 6 >4 < 7 >8 < 6+ [_!] >
>              < 6 >4 <6 5 [3+] >
>            }
>          >>

The support for figured bass consists of two parts: there is an input mode, introduced by `\figures`, where you can enter bass figures as numbers, and there is a context called FiguredBass that takes care of making BassFigure objects.

In figures input mode, a group of bass figures is delimited by `<` and `>`. The duration is entered after the `>>`

         <4 6>

Accidentals are added when you append `-`, `!` and `+` to the numbers

         <4- 6+ 7!>

Spaces or dashes may be inserted by using `_`. Brackets are introduced with `[` and `]`

         < [4 6] 8 [_! 12]>

Although the support for figured bass may superficially resemble chord support, it works much simpler. The `\figures` mode simply stores the numbers , and FiguredBass context prints them as entered. There is no conversion to pitches, and no realizations of the bass are played in the MIDI file.

Internally, the code produces markup texts. You can use any of the markup text properties to override formatting. For example, the vertical spacing of the figures may be set with `baseline-skip`.

##### See also

Program reference: BassFigureEvent music, BassFigure object, and FiguredBass context.

##### Bugs

Slash notation for alterations is not supported.

Read comments on this page, or add one. This page is for LilyPond-2.2.5 (stable-branch).