Voice / part

One line in the texture

In a piece in several parts, several lines run at the same time, and each of them is a voice or part. What is meant is the line, not the forces: a part can be played by a single musician or by many at once, for example all the first violins of an orchestra.

The first line shows one voice alone, the second the same voice with a countermelody, the third two voices that enter one after the other. In the second line both voices have the same note values, in the third they have the same notes, but offset.

Score and individual part

In the score, all the parts of a piece are printed one beneath the other. The conductor reads from it, and from it you can see what sounds at the same time. The musicians need only their own part: the sheet with a single line, also called an individual part or part book. Such an individual part can still be in several voices, for example the solo part of a piano concerto.

Individual part and score

• Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Stimme Viola) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Serenade in G major, 1st movement, K. 525 according to the sheet · individual part, viola · 2 pages

  The sheet has only one line per staff, with the name “Viola” above the first staff. Alto clef, one ♯, time signature C, “Allegro”, f in the first bar. The lines of the other instruments are missing.

• Eine kleine Nachtmusik (Partitur) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Serenade in G major, 1st movement, K. 525 according to the sheet · score with four lines · 4 pages

  Four lines one beneath the other: Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola and “Cello & Double Bass”. The viola is the third line, in the alto clef; cello and double bass share the bottom one.

Voices in a canon

• Bruder Jakob Folk tune, canon for four voices, Maikstrings song sheets No. 010 · 1 page

  The melody is printed only once on the sheet, one ♭ in the key signature, time signature C, eight bars. The subtitle calls it a canon for four voices. Above bars 1, 3, 5 and 7 is a circled number from ① to ④.

In its first six bars the viola part of “Eine kleine Nachtmusik” shows the same notes as the third line of the score: once as a sheet for a single player, once as one of four lines in the full picture.

Voices in a canon

In “Bruder Jakob” four voices belong to a single line: the subtitle speaks of a canon for four voices, and the melody is notated only once. The sheet does not explain the circled numbers. They are read as entry points (more under canon): the second voice begins when the first has reached bar 3, the third at bar 5 and the fourth at bar 7.

Common mistakes

• Confusing a part with a voice type: Soprano is a voice type; the “soprano part” is the line in the texture that a soprano sings.
• Taking an individual part for incomplete: It contains everything that a player performs; the other parts appear only in the score.
• Taking a canon for single-voice music: The line contains the melody once, but it is played or sung in several voices, offset in time.