The Figured Bass Edition

On shared codes, shorthand, and reductionism

Mark Slavonia (MJS) is an investor, a pilot, and an avid cyclist. He wrote about kitchen ballet, rowing machines, traveler’s checks, and more. He posts other things that are interesting on his website and on Twitter.

Mark here. Anyone who has assembled an elaborate Lego set can appreciate the design of Lego directions. Officially called “building instructions” these colorful catalogs take builders through complex projects without the use of any words, using carefully thought-out illustrations and a few symbols. By avoiding text, Lego levels the playing field between adults and children and makes their sets universal without requiring translation.

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These are not step-by-step instructions. Each illustration in Lego building instructions combines several steps into a manageable small project that often requires interpretation and planning to complete. After completing each illustration the builder can compare the work with the illustration to make sure that they match. Illustrations are carefully planned to present a complete and unambiguous template for the build.

These projects can be large. The instruction set for 2008’s ingenious 3803-piece Lego Death Star is 264 pages long. Here’s one of the first pages. Notice how step 8, for example, adds 12 pieces to the design without using text or even arrows.

Building Instructions, Lego set 10188, Death Star, page 6 of 264

The builder compares the drawing in step 7 to the drawing in step 8 and figures it out. This process is very satisfying and gets easier as one builds more and more Lego sets. Builders gain trust that the designers have provided them with enough information, and the designers have carefully planned just how much information builders need to make progress. 

The rapport and trust that forms between designers and builders of Lego projects reminded me of something I dimly remembered from college music courses— - figured bass.

Why is this interesting?

Figured Bass was a way of writing musical notation that was widely used in the Baroque and early Classical periods. It co-existed with, and was used in conjunction with, the now-familiar staff notation of five horizontal lines for each clef.
In figured bass notation the bass chords weren’t fully written out on the staff. Only the lowest note was represented as usual, and the other notes of the chord were hinted at or suggested by numbers written below the note. To take the most basic example, the familiar C major chord is written in staff notation like this:
 

but can be written in figured bass notation like this:

And since this is the standard position for this type of chord, the “5” and the “3” are sometimes omitted in a sort of figured bass shorthand, so that the entire chord can be represented simply by this:

Figured bass saved time for the composer or transcriber of the music and it allowed for some limited interpretation and improvisation by the performer. Here’s an example of a manuscript using figured bass notation. Note the numbers “6” and “4” at the bottom of the first measure. 

Figured bass and Lego instructions function like a puzzle or a code that is shared between the creator and the reader. They reduce the steps that need to be explicit and they reward familiarity and practice. They are both used in situations where fully writing out each step would have been burdensome for either the creator (figured bass) or the reader (Lego). They both evolved in response to a practical compromise between completeness, usability, and efficiency. Mastering the interpretation of these codes works like a shared nod of appreciation. (MJS)

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Thanks for reading,

Noah (NRB) & Colin (CJN) & Mark (MJS)

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