Talk:Part (music)

Redirect to Melody
Redirecting this page to Melody is not useful. For one thing, Voice (polyphony) redirects here. Not every polyphonic voice is a melody. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth (talk) 08:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Tag removed. Hyacinth (talk) 08:10, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Requested move: "Musical scale" → "Scale (music)"
I have initiated a formal RM action to move Musical scale to Scale (music). Contributions and comments would be very welcome; decisions of this kind could affect the choice of title for many music theory articles.

N oetica Tea? 00:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Synthesizers
I think this article should have a section on the voice parameter utilized in synthesizers, or it should have a link to the already-existing article on voice which I can't seem to find. MidnightRequestLine (talk) 20:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Highland Bagpipe, what???
Who gives a rat's tuba what "part" means in Highland bagpipe music? No pun intended, but *this is not noteworthy*. It is not pertinent to the role of the word "part" in music. It is trivia which belongs in a page about bagpipes.24.85.131.247 (talk) 02:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree, although tuba music would also not fit here :). The same applies for the subsequent statements about Contra dance. I think both can be replaced by the more general meaning the bagpipe and contra statements seem to convey: the part as a subdivision in certain musical forms, for example of a ternary form, e.g. part A in the form ABA, or for a binary form, part A from AABB. Strangely enough though the first article talks about Part, while the other talks about Section. Some consistency could be used. My theory books talk about parts. Any ideas? LazyStarryNights (talk) 20:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Made some changes to that part of the article, bringing structure and musical form to the fore, with less emphasis on the bagpipe. Also mentioned marches and square dancing. A little better this way, I think. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 21:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Your edit was certainly in the right direction. I further rationalised it and I hope you agree. The genres described were in my opinion still far too specific and elaborately described in relation to how broad these musical forms apply. I don't think specific genres need to be mentioned here, but if really a reference to genres must me made I suggest we simply copy e.g. Ternary form. I weakened the "synonyms" to "similar" words. This needs further work and potential splitting and merging. To my understanding:
 * Section (music) has various meanings in the context of musical form alone and yes one of them is the synonym of part.
 * Strain (music) article needs more work and/or merging with either (a split version of) Part (music) and/or Section (music).
 * Turn (music) currently refers to something completely different (Ornament (music)).
 * With the risk of topic hijacking.... Some other terminology "complaints" about parts I deleted:
 * Paragraph (music) doesn't even exist and I wonder how widely spread this term is.
 * Sentence (music) is very close to Period (music) and Satz and I am pondering potential mergers or at least further clarification. LazyStarryNights (talk) 23:09, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Wrong quotations?
Several, if not all of the quotations in the first part of the article are highly questionable and fail to define what Part, Voice, or Part writing really are.

The first quotation is from Allen Forte:
 * By "voice" we mean the succession of notes performed by a single human voice or single-line instrument.

And this quotation probably is the origin of the definition in the lead: "A part (or voice) is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument voice (or group of identical instruments or voices) within a larger work." Yet, as the example from Bach's Well Tempered Clavier evidences, parts could as well be played by one single instrument.

The next quotation is from Hendrik Van der Werf:
 * Codex Calixtinus (12th century) contains the earliest extant decipherable part music.

I don't quite understand what definition of "part music" could justify such a statement. All early medieval polyphonic music is vocal, i.e. part music. The first examples are in the 9th-century Musica enchiriadis, followed by the 11th-century examples in Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus, soon followed by Ms 1159 of the BNF in Paris, Ms 124 of the Douai Library, etc., that can reasonably be considered at least contemporary to the Codex calixtinus; the Wikipedia article concerning this codex merely says that it contains "early examples of polyphony".

Then comes a quotation from Eric Starr:
 * Part writing is derived from four-voice chorales written by J.S. Bach.

This appears to contradict the previous quotation. A lot of four-voice music has been written at least from the 13th century and one fails to see what the particular role of Bach's chorales is in this state of affairs.

Then John Shepherd:
 * Part writing is a compositional technique that involves writing a piece of music for one or more parts.

Music for one part? But it had seemed up to here that "Part" and "Part writing" concerned polyphony... Doest not "part" connote something that is but a part in a larger whole?

And Henri Charles Banister:
 * Counterpoint may be defined as Part-writing. It has also been defined, happily, as 'the art of combining melodies.'...By it [part-writing], here, is meant, the writing of successions of chords.

But I thought that the succession of chords was the subject matter of Harmony, not Counterpoint?

One problem with Wikipedia is that it takes anything printed to be the expression of the truth. One should realise that 50% of what is published is below average, and that a good part [!] of this is mere nonsense. I fail to see what these quotations add to a simple definition that could be something like "A part (or voice) is a strand or melodic line within an ensemble of several parts."

Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 15:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation
You are right, OnBeyondZebrax, it would be best to give the different meanings of "Part" in a disambiguation page. I'll let you do it, you probably know better how to. But let's review the meanings: This really is not a very good definition. First, I don't quite see what a "strand" is; second, it may be too much to say that a part is a "melody"; in addition, "in a larger work" does not make much sense. I think that a part is a "melodic line", and that the very idea of "part" implies that there are several parts, i.e. that the music is polyphonic. I'd therefore suggest, as short definition in a disambiguation page, something like:
 * "A part (or voice) is a strand or melody of music played by an individual instrument or voice (or group of identical instruments or voices) within a larger work."

– "A part (or voice) is one of the melodic lines that form a polyphonic piece of music." Strictly speaking (or in origin), "part" in notation is opposed to "score", which Willy Apel (The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900-1600) defines as "a scheme in which the voices of a composition are written one underneath the other, arranged is such a way that simultaneous tones appear in a vertical or nearly vertical alignment". A score is a set of parts written one above the other. But for a long time (say, from the 14th to the 16th century) it has been customary to write in separate parts without ever producing the corresponding score. Some of the earliest Renaissance scores are keyboard scores, which assemble several parts often on a reduced nunber of staves: this is score notation of one individual instrument. I think that it would be improper to call the [sheet music] of, say, Bach's Sonatas for solo violin a score: it is a part, but one without other parts... Musicians in a modern orchestra play from parts extracted from the score. Therefore:
 * "In music notation, a part refers to the separate printed or manuscript copies of the music for each individual instrumental performer in an ensemble or orchestra, as distinct from the score, which shows the music for all the instruments and/or voices.

– "In music notation, a part refers to the notation of a single melodic line for one singer or one melodic instrument, singing or playing either alone or in an ensemble. Separate parts are often extracted (by copy) from the full score of the work."

It must be added that there is a link between these first two meanings: what is notated as a separate part in the second meaning is a part in the first meaning. This is particularly evident when one speaks, say, of a "violin part", which may either mean the musical line played by the violon, or the separate notation of the same. The only case where this would not be true is that of pieces for solo violin: the notation is the violin part, but the line played by the violin is not a part... [or so I think; it sounds odd.] The reason of the usage of "structure" in this definition probably is that "form" had already been used at the outset of the definition. One may however argue that the structure is something else... A formal part really is a part in the form of a piece. The confusion between form and structure is very common (see Musical form), but that is no reason to repeat it here. Thus:
 * "In musical forms, a part may refer to a subdivision in the structure of a piece."

– "Part may also refer to a subdivision or section in the form of a musical piece."

Rather than giving only one example of ternary form, one may add that forms are usually considered to include from one to four parts.

All these definitions probably are perfectible; but I leave that to you or to anyone wanting to comment. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 18:36, 15 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Good comments above. Since then, the article has been expanded. Now it gives four different meanings in the lead. I summarize them (without trying to be accurate) like this: (1) sheet music with one line; (2) the music played by one (sub)section of an orchestra; (3) an independent line of music played simultaneously with other ones; (4) a movement in a composition.
 * The first three meanings are clearly related to each other, however the fourth one is not at all. An article like this should preferably be about a concept, not about a word. Therefore I suggest to split the article. I am not sure that the concept 'part in a musical form' merits its own article, so for that meaning readers could also be directed to the relevant articles about forms, movements etc. The remaining article should focus on the interrelated meanings of strands of tones, played by separate (groups of) people, when needed written on separate staves or sheets.
 * I do not think a separate disambiguation page is necessary, since there is already Part with an Arts section which could give both meanings. The qualifier (disambiguation tag) should change however to avoid confusion. For example it could be part (line) or part (voice) as opposed to part (composition). One or two sentences about the other meaning(s) could be kept for clarification. Bever (talk) 05:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Um ...
Who uploaded the example without clefs? Tony (talk)  07:01, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Good question. It was added by Hyacinth on 2 May 2010. It really needs clefs! @Hyacinth? — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:24, 15 January 2020 (UTC)