Conductor’s Score vs. Individual Parts
Have you ever noticed there is a difference between the conductor and musicians’ scores in an orchestra or ensemble? Are you familiar with the terminology individual parts and conductor’s/full score? Don’t worry, today we’ll break it down for you.
CONDUCTOR’S OR FULL SCORE
If you have ever seen a conductor’s score, you already know it looks extremely complex.
The conductor’s scores or full scores provide notations for all of the instruments and voices playing a piece in an ensemble. That means the score has separate staves for each instrumental part that plays at one time. Full scores are usually large print, as it helps the conductor read and follow every part at one glance.
And that is not all! Do you remember how transposing instruments work? If you want to review, take a look at our post about it.
Now, a conductor score has more to it than different clefs or keys as some of the parts might correspond to transposing instruments. When a conductor sees a C written for a French horn in F he immediately gets that the concert pitch is actually an F.
Basically, conductors are superheroes that can transpose music on the go! How do they do it? The answer is, as always, through dedication and study.
Then, why do conductors read transposed scores? Mainly because it helps to communicate with players and to understand what the instruments are doing technically speaking.
To sum up, the aim of a conductor’s score is to picture the piece as a whole. Having control over the details mentioned above as well as over the entire piece is the key to good performance.
INDIVIDUAL PARTS
Once you understand conductor scores, individual parts are easy to grasp. Just take a specific instrument staff and isolate it from the full score: now you have an individual part.
Most of the time, musicians do not need to read the full score. Every musician has their own version of the piece, according to the instrument they play. More information could be unnecessary to nail the performance.
Our tip: ask for the individual part when you request a transcription unless you specifically need the full score. This way, the transcriber will make your order exactly how you need it to be!
