When did people stop calling a song a 'number' and why?

still refer to tracks as 'numbers'... what i never really understood was people calling songs, or singles, 'records' -- like one single song... what's up with THAT ?!?!?

 

Agreed. To me, a 'number' refers to a live performance. A 'track' refers to a recording.

 

To reiterate, musical pieces are assigned a number for performing musicians to organize and find the score (sheet music).

In a Broadway musical, the first piece is #1, the second piece is #2, etc. If you were to look at the parts for each musician, you would see a big number next to each song or instrumental title. This is primarily done for rehearsal purposes. The conductor will say, "let's rehearse bars 21-25 of number 16." That means the musicians will look at their "book" (the musical scores) and find the song with #16 next to the title, and then find the 21st measure. This has proven to be far more efficient than saying something like, "let's go over that part that goes kinda like la, la, de, da in 'How Are Things in Glocca Morra'."

Another use of "numbers" by professional musicians can be found in a dance band. The band may have scores available for a thousand arrangements. The simplest way to organize them is to assign each piece a number. To alphabetize the pieces is more cumbersome, and more complicated as new arrangements are added.

In a dance band, the band leader calls out a number for the musicians to find the score so they could perform a piece. "Hey guys, let's play #720 in the books!"



Back in the heyday of dance bands, a bandleader would frequently announce a song to the audience as "a little number", as they had moments before told the musicians to find number "____".

 

Obscure album tracks that were not hit singles are still frequently called "deep cuts." Also, "cut" and "side" are not so anachronistic now that vinyl has made such a resurgence. (In my house it never went away.)

 

John Lennon introducing the first song by the Plastic Ono Band in Toronto in 1969: "We're just gonna do numbers that we know, you know, 'cause we've never played together before..."

 

"There's only music, so that there's new ringtones" - the Arctic Monkeys 10 years ago.

 

You guys do know that the bottom dropped out of the ringtone market years ago, right? Nobody buys ringtones anymore.

 

That's what they said about vinyl in the 90s. I've been buying up vintage ringtones and hoarding them. The new ringtones have too much compression... they hurt my head.

 

I think Louise was making the same point using an ironic quote.

 

I never did stop. Whenever I trip or knock over a glass at a restaurant or some other such performance, I invariably say: "Thank you. And now for my next number..."

 

i still call songs "numbers". all the time. usually in a band context when discussing what to play. everyone i play with does this for the most part.

 

Which happened after The Who changed the name to the High Numbers.

 

At the risk of being driven out of here on a rail, at least the terms "number" or "track" don't confer the moniker "song" on tracks that just aren't songs. It's extremely refreshing for me to see the use of terms such as number, track, piece, or dare I, instrumental.

 

Well, record is short for "recording", so that's why people call songs "records". Steve already explained "numbers". "Tracks", "Records", "Numbers" and probably most other 'slang' all actually make sense and are 'valid' as far as I'm concerned and I use them interchangeably. However, I have noticed I will occasionally refer to an instrumental as a "song", which is probably not correct, because I think technically a 'song' has to have lyrics.

Ha! I just realized Archtop just said something similar above!

 

Oh and on a similar note. (This happens less in the digital age) but when people call me out for calling a CD an "album" as if it isn't an album, I always have to correct them and say "An album is a collection of something, in the case of music, a collection of songs and/or instrumentals, or pieces or dialog, etc., an album doesn't reference the format."

My phone has a place for a "photo album".

 

Well, more properly, songs, by definition, are sung. Let's take Sonny Rollins' Surrey With the Fringe on Top from his Out West LP as an example. The original Broadway composition is a song and it has lyrics. Sonny's interpretation is an instrumental, but there's gray area. It's an instrumental version of a song, so there's some latitude there; but most correctly, the original is a song and Sonny's version is a "piece" or an "instrumental." But King Crimson's Red cannot ever, in any context, be correctly called a song. But call it what you like. My point on an internet forum that is devoted to minute details regarding recorded music is that we shouldn't refer to a Ford Mustang as a motorcycle. We're better than that, no?

 

Difference is Peel never blabbed
over the intros to songs

 

I agree 100%

 

We still do this in my funk, soul & disco cover band. We have 13 blocks of 4 or 5 songs that flow nice together. These are numbered from 1-1, 1-2, etc… to 13-5. Based on what's happening during a performance, our band leader will shout the next block of songs, "9!". If he wants to insert another song in the default flow, he shouts the song number, "12-4!". We need it to get to the right "tab" (if we don't know the song by heart) and I – I'm the keyboard player – need it to load my synth and computer patches to play that song.

 

My dad used to say it (in Dutch) all the time, and as a result I still inform my wife that this or that is such a "goed nummer!" quite frequently.

 

Number 9... number 9... number 9...

 

For those playing in bands, the singer might announce the next song played as either a tune or if they're an older player, they might call it a number. Some musicians call a selection of songs between breaks a 'set' , the older ones sometimes call the same thing a 'bracket'. I've worked both with older and younger musicians. I love that stuff, the little words that only musicians use. I do expect to hear a 60's DJ in a movie use the word 'number', though.

 

And don't forget that one is the loneliest number...

And for Pete's sake, Rikki, don't lose that number...