i wake up to the sound of music, mother mary comes to me

the other night i'm given a book to read by a friend. it's translated from japanese. as i get to the end of the first page i read the following paragraph (describing toyko):

'midnight is approaching, and while the peak of activity has passed, the basal metabolism that maintains life continues undiminished, producing the basso continuo of the ctiy's moan, a monotonous sound that neither rises nor falls but is pregnant with foreboding.'

clearly this japanese author is after my heart. you can't just drop a basso continuo bomb on me and not expect me to fall in love with you. i mean come on. as a music geek nothing woos me more then obscure references to anything music related. it doesn't get much better then basso continuo. on the first page.

the term is so old that my spell check doesn't recognize the word and tells me i'm spelling it wrong. for those non music geeks (read: everyone but me), basso contiuo was a prominent element of baroque music. back then instead of having the bass lines fully notated what composers did was to write out just the roots of the chords and the chord changes. the player with the basso continuo part would then improvise the rest. think of a baroque equivalent of a walking bass line in jazz music. that's basso continuo. this was played on different instruments depending on what the music called for. sometimes it was an upright bass, sometimes a harpsichord (this is before pianos mind you) and sometimes other period instruments like the vasca da gamba, which i think sorta looks like a cello. i just like saying, er, typing that. vasca da gamba. one of my music history profs was an expert on old baroque instruments so that's why i remember that.

basso continuo very much had the function of the being the lifeblood of the music. look at the term itself: continuous bass. that says it all. so basically this author has totally nailed the reference. it's marvelous. i have barely cracked the surface of this novel but this is a fantastic sign of things to come i predict.