Working with a score and parts

Introduction

Mozart is frequently used to create a Score for a piece, and then to produce separate individual Instrumental Parts to print off for the musicians.   Mozart's capabilities in this area have significantly increased from Mozart version 17, and so this article does not apply to earlier versions. This article presents some tips on managing a Score with Instrumental Parts, and some background on what Mozart has to do to implement it. The aim here is to present an overview: details can readily be found in Mozart's integral Help system.

The challenge

Mozart's objective is to contain a Score, and all the Instrumental Parts belonging to it, in a single document (.mz file), so that edits to a part are automatically reflected in changes to the score and vice versa.

The music document therefore contains:

• the totality of the music (the Score);
• the definition of what goes into each Instrumental Part;
• information on how the format of each Instrumental Part differs from the format of the same music in the score.

How Instrumental Parts differ from the Score

Let us first consider the simplest case, whereby an Instrumental Part is represented by a single stave on the score. For example a 2nd clarinet part from an orchestral score shown at written pitch, in which there is no stave-sharing with the 1st clarinet. There must still be differences between the Score and the Instrumental Part as follows.

Music font size	Instrumental Parts will usually be on a stave of height 6-7mm (17-20pt); an orchestral score 4mm (11pt) or even smaller. This (depending on page sizes) can result in very differet formatting.
Note spacing	The spacing of notes and bar-lines will in general be very fifferent in the score and parts. Consider, for example, a score with an exerpt of two parts as shown here. If the upper line finds itself as a lone stave in an Instrumental Part, then the two minims will have no need of all the extra spacing.
Line breaks	Both the font size and spacing considerations will lead to line breaks being a different points in the music in the Score and in the Instrumental Parts. There will also be other considerations, eg page turns, which will demand an indpendence of line- and page-break positioning.
Multiple bars rest	A score will only occasionally contain a multiple bars rest (as it would require all parallel parts to be silent). But these are commonplace in Instrumental Parts. For example with a score containing the snippet on the right, if the middle stave were to appear alone in an Instrumental Part, then it would almost certainly be written: This is another feature demanding independence of line break locations.

These, then, are the principal considerations determining Mozart's "Score and Parts" design, which is discussed in more detail below.

Defining the Instrumental Parts

Having created a score document (with the instrumention complete) mark it as a Score (ie a piece with associated Instrumental Parts) and execute Parts:Define command.

In the ensuing dialogue box, the button will define a default set of parts: one for each stave on the score. (This is usually a good starting point as unwanted ones are easily deleted, existing ones edited, and extra ones added.) A typical result is:

The available options are:
Define and add another Instrumental part.

And when an Instrumental part is selected in the list:
Move the selected part up or down in the list;
Remove the selected part from the list;
Edit the details of the selected part.

For more details press F1 with this dialogue box active, and/or accept the list of Instrumental Parts with OK.

Showing an Instrumental Part

The Open and Switch commands on the ribbon bar's Parts tab:

are used to open an Instrumental Part (or the Score) in a new music window, and to switch to an Instrumental Part (or the Score) in the current music window. A Part is automatically generated from the music in the Score when opened in this way. Any edits made to the Part will be automatically adopted by the Score and vice versa.

Line breaks in Instrumental Parts

When the Instrumental Part is generated, any hard line breaks in the Score are ignored (though "music breaks" are retained. Hard line breaks may be entered in an Instrumental Part. These do not affect the Score, but they are remembered by the Score for next time the Instrumental Part needs to be generated.

Multiple bars rest in Instrumental Parts

Consecutive bars rest in the Score will automatically be replaced in the Instrumental Part by a multiple bars rest (when there are no parallel strands of music in the part). Multiple bars rests will not cross a double bar line, and their geometric lengths will default to values dependent on the number of bars they span. A multiple bars rest in an Instrumental Part can be edited (changing both the distribution of them - eg 2 three-bars rests vs one six-bars rest, and the geometric length). This will not affect the appearance of the Score, but, again, the score will remember the chosen properties, for next time the Instrumental Part needs to be generated.