Number (music)

Individual numbers from musicals were often published separately as sheet music as in this example, "They All Look Alike" from Jerome Kern's Have a Heart

In music, number refers to an individual song, dance, or instrumental piece which is part of a larger work of musical theatre, opera, or oratorio. It can also refer either to an individual song in a published collection or an individual song or dance in a performance of several unrelated musical pieces as in concerts and revues. Both meanings of the term have been used in American English since the second half of the 19th century.[1][2]

  1. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition (1970). "Number". Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ A now archaic use of the term in the plural was as a synonym for musical sounds or notes. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1970). "Number". Merriam-Webster