parts

One way to visualize a score is to show the notes as horizontal bars. Such a view is often used in music software and is called a Piano Roll view. In this view, the horizontal axis corresponds to time while the vertical axis corresponds to the pitch. Thus, the length of each bar corresponds to the duration of the note and the vertical position of the bar corresponds to the pitch of the note. Usually, there are stylized piano keys to the left side of the Piano Roll view so that it is easier to read the pitches. 

The important distinctions between the score and the Piano Roll view are in the following:

• Horizontal positions of the notes and rests in a score only show what comes before and what comes after (in time). They are chosen to maximize the readability of the score and to use the available space on the paper economically.

•  Horizontal positions in the Piano Roll view correspond strictly to the moments in time. Typically, a note or rest with a very long duration will occupy much more horizontal space in the Piano Roll view than in the score. 

The next figure shows the beginning four measures from Bach’s The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus I. 

Figure: The beginning of Bach's The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus I

The next figure shows them in a Piano Roll view. From this view, we can easily see that notes are not overlapping i.e. each note does not start before the previous note finishes.

Figure: The beginning of Bach's The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus I, shown in a Piano Roll view

A sequence of non-overlapping notes is called a part. The next figure shows the following four measures in a Piano Roll view.

Figure: The next four measures of Bach's The Art of Fugue, Contrapunctus I, shown in a Piano Roll view

We can see that overlapping notes exist. Thus, this is not a single part. However, we can present this sequence of notes as a combination of two parts. This is shown in the next figure (one part is marked in blue and other part is marked in red).

Figure: The previous figure presented as two parts

The next figure shows how we can use two staves to write this sequence of notes. The upper staff corresponds to the blue color and the lower staff corresponds to the red color in the previous figure.

Figure: The previous figure presented in two staves

This is fine when two performers are involved. However, when only one performer is involved, often one staff is used. In such a case, the single staff contains both the parts. This is quite typical of piano music because the piano is an instrument on which quite complex music can be performed. For instance, we can often found four parts in a piano grand staff: two on the upper staff and two on the lower. 

The next figure shows the single staff containing both parts from the previous figure.

Figure: The previous figure presented in one staff

The next chapter explains in more details a staff containing multiple parts. 

Staff containing multiple parts

Although the same notes are presented in the previous figure and in the penultimate (the one before the previous) figure, we can see that some of them are oriented differently in the penultimate figure as compared to the previous figure (upward versus downward orientation). The explanation for this is given below.

When a staff contains only one part, notes positioned below its middle line are oriented upward while notes positioned above its middle line are oriented downward. This convention improves the readability of a score. The staves in the penultimate figure illustrate this convention.

When a staff contains two parts, notes belonging to the upper part are oriented upward while those belonging to the lower part are oriented downward. Without this, we would have problems in determining which note belongs to which part. The previous figure illustrates this convention. Sometimes, there are even three parts in the same staff. In such case, obviously two of them must contain notes oriented equally. 

The term “voice” is also used instead of the term “part” but this can be misleading. “Voice” suggests that only one human voice can sing all the notes that belong to the same part. However, that does not have to be true. Actually, more than one simultaneously sounding note can belong to the same part, as long as they all start at the same moment of time and also end at the same moment of time. Obviously, they cannot be sung by only one human voice. This is illustrated in the next figure, which shows two measures from the middle section of Chopin’s Nocturne in E major Op. 62 No. 2. This is a good example of complex music written in a piano grand staff. There are two parts both in the upper and lower staff. The lower part in the upper staff contains two and three simultaneously sounding notes, all beginning at the same moment of time and also ending at the same moment of time (they are marked in red color).

Figure: An example of a part that cannot be sung by one human voice (simultaneous notes in this part are marked in red)

There are a few other conventions that improve the readability of a score. For instance, sometimes rests at the end or beginning of a measure are omitted from the parts, if the existence of the rests is obvious. The next figure shows the beginning of Chopin’s Nocturne in E major Op. 62 No. 2. There is one part in both upper and lower staff, except for the last shown measure where the second part appears in the lower staff (marked in red color). We can see that this part should have a rest during the first and the second beat of the measure. But since this is quite obvious, it is not written down in the score.

Figure: An example of a rest that is not written in a score (a rest should be written before the note marked in red) 

The next figure shows the same measure when the rest is written.

Figure: The measure from the previous figure, when the rest is explicitly written (the part is marked in red)

With this, we have come to the end of the part of this book which explains how to read scores. The most important aspects of notation, not only those which are important for learning harmony but also many others, have been briefly explained in this and the preceding chapters. This should be enough for a reader to be able to read all the examples of the scores given in this book and also the complete scores given in chapter Complete harmony analyses.

However, notation is a comprehensive subject and separate books exist which are dedicated to it. For instance, ornaments are not explained in this book. Proper execution of ornaments is a theme by itself, especially since ornaments from the baroque period are different from the ones belonging to the later period (even worse, some of them look the same but are executed differently). Also, the pedal markings in piano music are not explained. In fact, pedal markings are stripped off from the scores in this book so that more space is available for annotating harmony.