Cut

A single song, track, or continuous musical selection on a vinyl record, or a single track on a CD or other recording medium. The term cut comes from the days of audio recording when the sounds were actually " cut " with a stylus as a spiral groove into a vinyl disc or wax cylinder. A directive to a musician to delete a portion of music in a composition. This is a widely used technique in Broadway Musicals. Quite often, certain portions of the performance are deleted to meet the desires of the director. Some of the most compelling reasons to cut music in a Broadway Musical are, to shorten the length of a long performance by cutting songs or reprises, to avoid musical passages that are beyond the capabilities of the performers, or to cut musical passages to shorten or eliminate dance sections.