The Baroque runs from about 1600 to 1750. It gave us opera, the concerto and the sonata, and, more important for anyone who writes songs today, the system of keys that pop music still uses.
New forms
Jacopo Peri wrote the first operas. Baroque music expanded the size, range and complexity of instrumental playing and established the mixed vocal and instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio, and the instrumental solo concerto and sonata. Arcangelo Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely; his student Antonio Vivaldi built hundreds of works on Corelli's trio sonatas and concertos. Italian composers moved on to the lighter galant style around 1730, while Johann Sebastian Bach kept writing in the Baroque style up to 1750.
The bass line runs the band
Baroque ensembles were accompanied by a basso continuo: bass instruments such as viol, cello or double bass played the bass line, and a keyboard or lute player filled in the harmony. The harmony was written as figured bass, numbers and symbols over the bass line that the harpsichordist, organist or lutenist read and realised on the spot.
That is the same idea as a chord chart over a bass part, or a producer's bass line with chord symbols above it: the low line and the harmony are fixed, the voicing is up to the player.
Keys
The Baroque formalised common-practice tonality, writing a piece in a particular key. That kind of harmony has stayed in wide use in classical and popular music ever since, and it is what the Theory & solfège course is built on.
Sources
Every date, name, tempo and origin on this page comes from these pages, read on 2026-10-24.