score summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see score.

score, In music, the parts of all the instruments or singers of an ensemble notated with simultaneous sounds aligned vertically, on a system of parallel staffs arranged one above another. Polyphonic (multivoiced) music was being composed for some 600 years before the score came into regular use in the 16th–17th centuries. Early examples of scores exist for works of the Notre-Dame school, and early composers may have used temporary scores during composition, perhaps on chalkboards, from which the parts for individual singers were then copied.

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