# Score and parts

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/score-and-parts
Also known as: full score, orchestral part

**A score shows every instrument’s music stacked on aligned staves, while a part shows one instrument’s line alone, the conductor reads the score, the players read parts.**

A part contains only what its player needs, with everyone else’s music compressed into numbered bars of rest. This is why orchestral playing requires counting: you cannot see what the oboe is doing, only that ninety-three bars pass before you play again. Cues, small printed fragments of another instrument’s line, are the editor’s help for the worst of these.

A study score is a full score printed small for reading rather than conducting, and working from one is the fastest way to understand why your part does what it does.

String parts are shared: two players read one stand, and the player on the inside turns the pages. That practical arrangement is why string parts are printed with page turns planned into the rests.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/score-and-parts