In
music
Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...
, a repeat sign is a
sign
A sign is an Physical object, object, quality (philosophy), quality, event, or Non-physical entity, entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to ...
that indicates a section should be
repeated
A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. There are two types of reruns – those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated.
Variations
In the United Kingdom, the wo ...
. If the piece has one repeat sign alone, then that means to repeat from the beginning, and then continue on (or stop, if the sign appears at the end of the piece). A corresponding sign facing the other way indicates where the repeat is to begin. These are similar to the instructions
da capo
Da capo (, also , ) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). It is often abbreviated as D.C. The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is a ...
and
dal segno.
Different endings
When a repeat calls for a different ending, numbered brackets above the bars indicate which to play the first time (1.), which to play the second time (2.), and so on if necessary. These are called "first-time bars" and "second-time bars", or "first and second endings". They are also known as "
volta
Volta may refer to:
Persons
* Alessandro Volta (1745–1827), Italian physicist and inventor of the electric battery, count and eponym of the volt
* Giovanni Volta (1928–2012), Italian Roman Catholic bishop
* Giovanni Serafino Volta (1764–184 ...
brackets" and although there are normally 2 volta brackets, there is no limit to how many there can be.
In Unicode
In
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
, repeat signs are part of the
Musical Symbols and they are coded as follows:
PDF of Musical Symbols block from the unicode consortium
/ref>
Other notation
When only standard keyboard characters are available, the punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. A ...
marks vertical bar
The vertical bar, , is a glyph with various uses in mathematics, computing, and typography. It has many names, often related to particular meanings: Sheffer stroke (in logic), pipe, bar, or (literally the word "or"), vbar, and others.
Usage ...
and colon are used to represent repeat signs: , : ... :,
In Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe dur ...
, a repeat is indicated by a Roman numeral
Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...
following a section. This is common particularly in a Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek , vocative case of ('' Kyrios''), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the Kyrie eleison ( ; ).
In the Bible
The prayer, "Kyrie, eleison," "Lord, have mercy" derives f ...
, where the lines followed by "iii" or "iij" are to be sung three times (corresponding to the correct liturgical form).
In shape-note singing, repeat signs usually have four dots, between each line of the staff. The corresponding sign to show where the repeat is from is either the same sign reversed (if it is at the beginning of a bar), or the dots themselves (if it is in the middle of a bar). First and second endings are given with just the numbers above the corresponding bars. Repeats notated at the beginning of a verse, or given with multiple lines of text per verse, are generally required; the repeats given for most songs of the final few lines are always optional, and almost always used only for the final verse sung.
See also
* Abbreviation (music)
* Coda
*Da capo
Da capo (, also , ) is an Italian musical term that means "from the beginning" (literally, "from the head"). It is often abbreviated as D.C. The term is a directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space, and thus is a ...
* Dal segno
*Repetition (music)
Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme. While it plays a role in all music, with noise and musical tones lying along a spectrum from irre ...
References
External links
List of repeat variations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Repeat Sign
Musical notation