# Partbook

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Book with music for just one of the voices

Page from a printed partbook. Here the bass singer (one of six musicians) is provided with his words and music.

A **partbook** is a format for printing or copying music in which each book contains the [part](/source/Part_(music)) for a single voice or instrument, especially popular during the [Renaissance](/source/Renaissance_music) and [Baroque](/source/Baroque_music). This format contrasts with the [choirbook](/source/Choirbook), which included all of the voice parts and could be shared by an entire [choir](/source/Choir).

The production of partbooks appears to have been a cost-cutting measure, as large-scale printing was much more expensive. For example, by 1529, [King's College, Cambridge](/source/King's_College%2C_Cambridge) had replaced almost all of its choirbooks with partbooks. The reduced cost also allowed each performer to have his own copy, and partbooks were more portable than a choirbook. They were, however, flimsy, and originals do not survive in large numbers.

This is not a partbook. The separate parts are notated on the same page.

Choral scores completely replaced individual vocal parts during the 19th century. While instruments continue to use parts for ease of page turning, these are rarely bound into "books" and are no longer so called.

[Drexel 4180–4185](/source/Drexel_4180%E2%80%934185), a set of six manuscript partbooks belonging to the Music Division of the [New York Public Library](/source/New_York_Public_Library)

## References

- [The Forrest-Heyther Partbooks: Lesser Composers](http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/partbooksfh.html)

## External links

- ["Catalogo Gaspari on line"](http://www.bibliotecamusica.it/cmbm/scripts/gaspari/index.asp). Bologna: Museo internazionale e biblioteca della musica.

- Nägele, Reiner (ed.). ["Partbook reader"](https://web.archive.org/web/20150518233527/http://stimmbuecher.digitale-sammlungen.de/). Munich: MDZ. Archived from [the original](http://stimmbuecher.digitale-sammlungen.de/) on 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2015-10-05.

- [Tudor Partbooks project](http://www.tudorpartbooks.ac.uk/): a UK-based project to digitise, restore, reconstruct and analyse Tudor partbooks

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Partbook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partbook) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partbook?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.