Alberti Bass

Broken chord accompaniment in the bass, often used in keyboard music.

 It is a method of breaking up a triad by playing the lowest note, then the highest note, then the middle note, then the highest note again.

Step 1:

Take any chord triad. It can be major or minor.

In this example we are taking the C Major chord which has the following notes in its triad: C, E, G

Step 2:

Next identify the Low Middle and High note. This is based on where the notes are positioned in the triad chord.

In this case the Low note will be C,

The Middle note will be E

and the High note will be G.

Step 3:

Place the notes in the order of Low, High, Middle, High and then Repeat.

While an Alberti bass can be written using any consistent note value,  we will be using Quavers as this (alongside semiquavers) was the most commonly used note value for Alberti basses.