Number (music)

As early as 1917, Jerome Kern wrote that "musical numbers should carry on the action of the play, and should be representative of the personalities of the characters who sing them.

For McMillin, the start of a musical number creates a noticeably different "feel" in which the singer becomes a "performer" not simply a character.

[4] For Horn, the individual numbers can serve not only to advance the narrative but also to directly address and engage the audience in an experience which stands apart from the dramatic context of the work, and this latter function had its roots in vaudeville entertainments.

However, as Rick Altman points out, some of the numbers in these types of shows such "This Heart of Mine" in the film Ziegfeld Follies can be narratives in miniature.

Early examples of this trend include Carl Maria von Weber's opera Euryanthe and Robert Schumann's secular oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri.

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