What is behind Passaggi?

Developed by professional cornettist Helen Roberts, the idea behind Passaggi springs from a desire, common to many performers of historical repertoires, to recreate aspects of the musical experience as it may have existed at the time a piece of music was written. Improvisation and ornamentation may form only one aspect of this wide-reaching desire, yet it was felt that in this area students and professionals would achieve greater immersive study and practice if the harmonic and musical context for improvisation, ornamentation and diminution were more easily accessible.

​How many of us can open Dalla Casa’s Il vero modo… and sing the baseline to his exercise embellishing Striggio’s I dolci colli, for example? And how much more profitable would our practice of this exercise be if we could? How many more of us would practise improvising on a ground, if we had a ground? This project will enable more effective exploration of historical sources and approaches by providing digitally some aspects of the innate and inherited musical awareness common to all musicians of the past that we strive to connect with in the twenty-first century. ​

'An innovative new tool for studying and rehearsing early music in the 21st century...'

What features does Passaggi 1.0 have?
 
Passaggi is a personal practice app for early music, designed to deliver high-quality audio files via a user-friendly interface. We will be rolling out a host of innovative and unique features as development work on the app progresses. These include:

• Variable tempo. Choose a tempo at which to play your track.
• Variable pitch. Choose a pitch at which to play your track.
• Historically appropriate tunings used for each bundle.
• High-quality sampled historical organ sounds by Sonus Paradisi for digitally produced tracks.
• Professional continuo and ensemble recordings for live tracks.
• Ships with our first three bundles as standard.

What features are in the pipeline?
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• A user-controlled click-track function to replace the pre-recorded metronome beeps currently included.
  
• A re-scaled version for tablet.
  
• In-app purchases enable you to build your own personal library on your own device, backed up by Cloud storage.
• Sheet music compatibility (iPad/tablet version). View and interact with sheet music within the app whilst your backing track is playing. This will require a large investment to cover development costs.

'...for students, teachers and professionals.'

Who is it for?
 
Passaggi can be used by anybody. The current aim with regard to the library is to build up resources for use by those performing music of the 16th and 17th centuries. If you are a player of recorder, violin, viola, bass violin, viols, cornett, trombone, dulcian, shawm or plucked strings, if you are a singer interested in this repertoire or if you play a modern instrument and wish to explore something new, then Passaggi is for you. In the future,  resources will be developed for the 14th and 15th centuries, and possible applications in 18th century repertoire are also being explored. Investment in Passaggi will give you the opportunity to shape the future of this project as well as instant access to all the latest products and materials.