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Two classic examples of the Jimi Hendrix chord and why calling it an augmented 9th chord makes no sense.
Preface
Theory should reflect how we hear music. If the theory doesn’t reflect what you hear, it’s wrong.
In the case of the Hendrix chord, applying formal jazz theory to a more organic genre such as blues doesn’t add up.
Warning: if you are about to sit a formal music theory exam and you’re asked to describe this chord, call it an augmented 9th chord! Exams are set by academics; they’ll want the answer that they teach.
The Hendrix Chord
You may have heard of the Jimi Hendrix Chord or the augmented 9th chord, E7(#9).
To the disapproval of many academics, this chord is also informally known as a 10th chord. I believe this is a more plausible name than augmented 9th. To me, it is a 7th chord with both a major and a minor 3rd.
Chord Symbol vs Chord Function
Let me say at the outset that I’m not advocating that the Hendrix chord be called E10. This is an informal symbol, mainly in use among musicians without formal training.
E7(#9) is the official, accepted name for this chord. The many thousands of musicians who were brought up reading chord charts will be familiar with this symbol and will instinctively play the right chord.
Many chords have several possible interpretations, depending on the context. The function of a chord is significant for analysis.
However, when reading, it’s more convenient to see the most commonly used version of the chord name each time, regardless of the context.
Personally I think the name was incorrect in the first place; it makes no sense to me, but there’s no point in my trying to deny that the Hendrix chord is formally always written E7(#9). My music notation software won’t even recognise the symbol E10!
More properly it could be named as a polytonal chord, Em over E. However, there’s no easy way to type this symbol so it’s mainly used in handwritten chord charts and music publishing apps.
My argument is that even though it’s called an augmented 9th chord, we should treat the Hendrix chord as a 7th chord with both a major and a minor 3rd.
What Key Are We In?
Rather than worry about chord names, let’s look at how the Hendrix chord is commonly used.
The classic use of this chord is on guitar, in the key of E major, as the root (tonic) chord with an added D and G at the top. The order of the notes, from low to high, is E G# D G. In this classic guitar chord shape, the 5th, B, is left out.
Aside: in a root position 7th chord it’s not uncommon to leave the 5th out to reduce clutter, especially if closely voiced. No B is no big deal…
G or F Double-sharp? That Is the Question
I note that some major sources, including the Fender website, name the highest note G even though they call the chord an augmented 9th chord. If it truly is an augmented 9th, it should be called F double-sharp. More on this later…
Purple Haze
The ultimate example of this chord in use is the Jimi Hendrix song that made the chord famous, Purple Haze.
Forgive the cheesy sounds used here- it’s all about the notes 🙂
What Key Are We Really In?
What is the key? If you look at the melody, it’s in E minor, not E major. G natural is a prominent note in the melody.
In the Hendrix chord it’s the major 3rd, G#, that’s dissonant against the melody, not the minor 3rd, G. To acknowledge that G belongs to the melody, as it does, it should be called G, not F##.
Blue Note
The Hendrix chord is functionally both a major and a minor chord. I suppose you could respell the note G# as Ab, a diminished 4th, to reflect the tension between it and G, but I personally think it amounts to a blue note. After all, this chord is very much the domain of blues.
Blues songs are often described as having variable 3rd and 7th notes yet they are considered as being in a major key. I think that most blues melodies are in a minor key but are accompanied by major chords (usually as dominant 7ths, but that doesn’t stop them from being major chords). The interaction between the minor 3rd in the melody and the major 3rd in the chord is what creates that variable quality; that grungy, ambivalent bluesy character.
If you don’t believe me, try singing Purple Haze with a major 3rd and 7th.
Very different! Nothing like the character of the original.
If you think it might be in the myxolydian mode, sing the major 3rd and keep the minor 7th.
The riff sounds better but the melody still sounds wrong!
Now sing it with a definite minor 3rd and minor 7th – sounds about right, I reckon.
The note G is a prominent note in the melody. It’s a main note (a chord note), not a passing note. Surely a chord note that sounds the same as a prominent melody note should be acknowledged as a regular chord note, not as an augmented anything!
A Chord With Both 3rds
I’m not trying to say that G#, the major 3rd, isn’t also a chord note. The Hendrix chord is simply one that contains the 3rd of both the melody’s key and the chord progression’s key.
G Major Chord
The chord that follows is a G major chord. The riff after the verse also contains a G major chord, as a 1st inversion triad: B D G, B D G.
In E minor, G major is a closely related chord: it’s the relative major, a perfectly normal chord to visit.
G major is less closely related to E major: it isn’t even built on a note in the key of E major. Yet, when we hear the song, it effortlessly fits in. This supports E minor rather than E major as the key of this song.
Taxman
Another classic song featuring the Hendrix chord, this time in D, is Taxman by the Beatles.
For the sake of comparison, I have transposed Taxman to E (up 2 semitones).
The melody pointedly avoids the 3rd during the E7(#9) chord but in the next line, as a passing note over a D chord, there is a G natural, suggesting E minor as the key. The D chord is also more closely related to E minor than E major.
Blues Mode
D is soon followed by A, which seems to contradict my argument by being closer to E major than E minor. This brings to mind a common feature of blues songs.
Blues melodies often miss out the 6th note of the scale (Purple haze is like this). When the 6th is included, it tends to be a major 6th, to fit the subdominant chord, the one calm moment in blues.
In E major that’s the note C#, the 3rd of an A major chord.
Given a minor 3rd and a minor 7th, a scale with a major 6th is the dorian mode. Here is E dorian:
E dorian
What Came First? The Chicken Or the Egg?
I’m no historian but I suspect that African American slaves were singing the blues long before they had access to a guitar. The accompaniment came later.
The dorian mode is a common mode for blues melodies. Superimpose this with major chords based on the major (ionian) mode and we have the blues effect.
G Chord
Just before the final solo, Taxman eventually goes to a G chord, again favouring E dorian as the Key. Both D and G are chords whose root notes aren’t in the scale of E major…
Again, the melody is more minor than major and it is the contrast with the major third in the chord that creates the grungy, bluesey character.
Summary
In a nutshell, blues often combines a minor or dorian melody with major chords. The chords often include an added minor 7th (dominant 7th chords).
The Hendrix chord is a 7th chord with both major and minor thirds, highlighting the character of blues music.
In its classic form, the Hendrix chord is used as the tonic chord in E
Blues melodies are more minor than major. They are often in the dorian mode
Because the minor 3rd of the Hendrix chord belongs to the melody, the chord must use the melody note’s name. In E that’s G, not F##
The grungy, dissonant character of blues is due to the ambiguity of the 3rd and 7th notes of the scale, which feel like they’re somewhere between major and minor
This ambiguity is created by contrasting the minor 3rd and 7th of the melody with the major 3rd of the tonic and dominant chords
The Hendrix chord combines both the 3rd of the melody and the 3rd of the major chord which accompanies it, so both notes are 3rds: one from the melody’s mode and one from the key of the chord
Postscript: Root Note Power in Chords
There’s another reason the note G shouldn’t be called F double-sharp.
The core notes of a chord are the 1st and the perfect 5th. The 5th reinforces the root note, helping us to hear what the root note is. The 5th literally blends in to the root note to make it stronger.
Any pair of notes a perfect 5th apart point to a possible root note.
The inversion of a perfect 5th is a perfect 4th. Whereas in a perfect 5th, the higher note blends in to the lower note, in a perfect 4th, the lower note blends in to the higher note.
Maybe It’s a G Chord
In the key of E, the top two notes of the Hendrix chord, low to high, are D and G. That’s a perfect 4th, pointing to the upper note, G, as a possible root note.
If the notes were D and F##, the interval between them would be an augmented 3rd, presumably an interval with a degree of tension, in the context in which it’s used. For an example of the valid use of an augmented interval name, please visit Sleight of Ear: the effect of musical context on perception.
This is clearly not the case. When you listen to the chord, the top two notes sound clear and stable, as you would expect from a perfect 4th.
I’m not trying to suggest that G is the real root note: the chord’s voicing strongly favours E (If it was, G# would be respelled as Ab and the chord would be called G6 add b9).
However, the fact that both notes are voiced high in the chord doesn’t prevent them from being noticed as a stable (perfect) interval. If anything, being in the same octave, they’re even more recognisable. You can hear them clearly, as an overlay to E major: a hint of G major.
Furthermore, both G and D are reinforced by belonging to the melody.
E10 is part E major and part E minor. It can also be seen as part E major and part G major. If the note B wasn’t left out of the classic guitar chord shape, the chord would contain a complete G major triad! Just like the riff in Purple Haze…
Controversy Corner is a category in which I like to present a sometimes controversial perspective that doesn’t necessarily represent orthodox music theory. These are my own thoughts and observations. Whether you agree or disagree, I’d love to read your thoughts as comments.
This post is one of a growing series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
A time signature has an inherent hierarchy of strong and weak points within the bar. Syncopation is the emphasis of weak parts of the time signature. This introduces a dynamic interaction between the time signature’s implied rhythm and the rhythm of the part; a sense of going “against the grain”.
The Back Beat
The simplest form of syncopation is to emphasise the weak beats instead of the strong beats. The classic example of this can be found in many popular music genres since the advent of rock & roll; the snare drum playing the “back beat”, emphasising beats 2 and 4 in a 4-beat bar.
A similar effect can be achieved on any instrument by accenting the weak beats. Below is an example of a quaver rhythm, first with accents on the strong beats, then on the weak beats.
Tap, clap or play along to the following rhythms:
Playing Off The Beat
The back beat is only syncopation in the broadest sense. The term syncopation typically refers to emphasising weak parts within the beat a rather than just the weak beats.
The most common example of syncopation within the beat is to emphasise the 2nd quaver of each beat, the “off-beats” or “and”s, instead of the beat itself.
The following example of a bar of quavers uses accents, first to emphasise each beat, then to emphasise each off-beat quaver. Listen to the rhythms then tap, clap or play along:
Listen again and this time, only tap on the accented notes.
Syncopation adds excitement to a rhythm. Even in rhythms which are largely on the beat, the odd syncopated moment adds life to a part.
In the drum rhythm below, there is a brief syncopation is in the second half of bars 2 and 4.
Ways To Syncopate
Syncopation can be achieved in 2 ways:
by emphasising a note or notes on a weak part of the bar as above, with an accent.
by de-emphasising a strong part of the bar, in particular by not playing a note there at all. This can be because there’s a rest or because the previous note is still sounding.
Note that when clapping or tapping, there is no audible difference between these two bars.
Zooming In
Syncopation doesn’t just refer to emphasising the off-beat quavers. A more aggressive version would be to syncopate by a semiquaver.
A couple of the rhythms we learnt in 20. How To Read Rhythms 1 had semiquaver syncopation within the beat, by not playing a note on the “and”, the 2nd quaver. We can see now why these felt harder to learn than the others… Here’s an example of a bar with these two rhythms. Tap or play along:
Once you’ve experienced it, syncopation feels quite “natural”. In many popular genres, singers seldom sing exactly on the beat, even if that’s how the melody is written. Instead, they instinctively apply a degree of syncopation so the melody doesn’t sound too rigid. Rhythmic players rely on syncopation to add dynamics and drive.
Learning To Syncopate
Like many rhythms, syncopation is best learnt initially using a metronome. The secret to being able to syncopate is to feel the beat – to know where the beat (or strong beat) is, and then to know what relationship your note has to the beat.
Some musicians find it easy to tap the beat with their foot while playing. If this works for you, then by all means tap instead of using a metronome. However, many find it awkward to tap on the beat while playing off the beat, especially when first learning a new rhythm.
Foot Tapping Tip: In simple time, use the action of lifting your toes between taps to represent the half-beats; the “and”s.
If the rhythm seems tricky, remember to slow down the tempo and zoom in, as discussed in 20. How To Read Rhythms 1.
Ultimately, once you know a rhythm well enough to be able to feel it, you will no longer need the metronome. Metronomes can become quite annoying over time(!) so it’s worth weaning yourself off it as soon as you can feel the rhythm properly.
Mixed rhythms
Many parts, rhythmic as well as melodic, have a degree of variation in their rhythm, often achieved by brief syncopations in between overall on-beat rhythms.
Try These…
Play the movies below and tap the rhythms with your hand on a bench top, or if you prefer, clap. Listen carefully to the metronome click so you remain aware of the beat…
Once you’ve learnt each rhythm, play it to a metronome at 60 bpm without the movie. Gradually increase the tempo to 100 bpm or more. You can play along to the following movies of the rhythms at 100 bpm to see how you went.
Being able to tap the beats with your foot while playing is a useful skill. Practice tapping the beats with your foot, together with the metronome, while playing or tapping/clapping the above rhythms with your hands. As you settle in, stop the metronome and try it by yourself.
Notation Tip
Rhythms are usually notated so that it’s clear to see where the beats are. For shorter notes, this is indicated by beaming. For longer notes, the note is split into shorter notes and joined by a tie (see 21. Note Values 2: Ties).
When crotchets fall halfway between beats, on the “and”s, they can be written as crotchets: it’s such a common occurrence that most musicians, once they see a crotchet after a single quaver or quaver rest, are familiar with this shortcut.
However, crotchets which are a semiquaver off the beat must be split and tied to show where the beats are, otherwise the music is too hard to follow.
In the correct example above we can see that the next note starts just after each beat. The position of each beat is clearly shown by the beaming.
If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date wth new posts, please subscribe.
This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
We have already looked at tempo: the ability to play in varying tempi, speed up or slow down while playing, or play freely, with totally flexible timing.
Overall tempo within a section of music is indicated by a metronome marking indicating the tempo in beats per minute (bpm). As we have seen in previous chapters, this is usually written as the note value representing 1 beat in the time signature followed by = and a metronome number.
Other terms and symbols are used to indicate changes in tempo within a piece. The list below is of the more common of these.
The dashed line following terms which indicate gradual tempo change extends over the number of bars or beats over which the change occurs. Tempo markings that describe an overall tempo are listed in Character Markings And Their Tempo Ranges.
Tempo Change Flyover
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These are usually descriptive words and can appear in a variety of languages including English. The Italian names are prevalent in Classical music, but in Jazz they’re usually English. Other genres often use the language of their origin.
Character markings appear above the start of the first stave on the first page, where metronome markings are also written, in Bold type.
We associate Italian character names with tempo, largely because metronomes attach tempo ranges to them, but it’s more about the character than the tempo. The ranges are quite wide, though, and it’s likely that, to achieve the appropriate character, the tempo will end up within the suggested range.
The list below lists the more common tempo markings. Other variations add –issimo to the end of the word to intensify the meaning (Larghissimo means extremely slow, Prestissimo means extremely fast), or –ino or –etto to soften the meaning (Allegretto is slightly slower than Allegro).
If the piece is to be played at a specific tempo, a metronome marking can be written after a character name.
*At the lowest tempi it becomes difficult to count the beats accurately without counting the ”ands”, the next shorter note value. For more on this, please visit 20. How To Read Rhythms 1.
If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date wth new posts, please subscribe.
The Interval-Singing Project is a database of popular song and theme titles, collected as an aid to teaching intervals.
The songs are well-known within their category and genre and feature a specific musical interval as the first interval in the melody.
Instead of a student having to learn the sound of each interval from scratch, they will be able to tap into their own knowledge by simply remembering the start of a well-known song within their lived experience and musical interests.
I have set up a survey to collect suggestions. Please share the link below with your music teacher or fellow musicians so we can build a rich resource.
The resulting database will be available free of charge to anyone by subscribing to my blog and will be updated regularly. A selection of results will be publicly posted here.
Being able to recognise and name intervals is one of the cornerstones of both music theory and musicianship and I hope that the resulting database will become a handy, free resource for anyone who learns or teaches music.
This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
Learning To Sing Intervals
Interval names are based on scale notes.
If we can sing, hum or imagine the sound of a scale, we can teach ourselves the character and name of various intervals by ear. We can count how many scale notes there are from the lower note of the interval to the higher note.
The easiest scale to sing, at least in Western culture, is the major scale. If you can’t sing a major scale straight away, please have a look at 17. Listen And Sing: How To Sing The Major Scale before reading on.
Major scale intervals
In 16. Intervals 1: Major, Minor And Perfect Intervals we saw that intervals are always counted from the lower note to the higher note, regardless of the order in which they’re played. The lower note of the interval becomes the root note of a major scale. We count scale notes to find the higher note and name the interval.
Counting up from the root note, the major scale contains the major 2nd, major 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, major 6th, major 7th, and, of course, the octave.
Treat the root note of the scale as the lower note of an interval.
Now sing from the root note to the 2nd note. This is a major 2nd.
To sing a major 3rd, sing the first 3 scale notes in a row but sing the 2nd note quieter or shorter than the first and third notes (see below). After a few times, leave the second note out altogether.
Repeat this exercise from the root note to each of the other notes in the scale.
Tip: the most useful intervals to become really good at are the major 3rd, perfect 5th and the octave. They are the notes of a major triad, a sound which will feel familiar to the ear and provide a shortcut for larger intervals (more on triads in Part 2 of my course).
Try These…
Below are the intervals of C major. Most voices can find a comfortable way to sing a C in the lower part of their range. The note number/scale degree is indicated below the notes.
In the first line, sing along to the first bar, then sing the same notes again in the second bar while you hear the interval played together. Feel your voice hit the lower and higher notes of the interval at the start and end of the bar.
In the second line the in-between scale notes are left out. Again, keep singing the first bar while you hear the interval played together in the second bar.
Practice each interval long enough until you don’t need to listen to the example while you sing.
Major 2nd
Major 3rd
Perfect 4th
Perfect 5th
Major 6th
Major 7th
Octave (perfect 8th)
Once you build a little confidence, choose a slightly lower or higher note for your intervals.
The more you do exercises like these, the easier it will be to recognise the interval between two notes, whether you hear them as a melodic interval (consecutive notes) or as a harmonic interval (both notes sounding together).
How To Sing An Interval Above A Note
This is just like how we learnt the intervals starting on C
Choose a major or perfect interval by name, such as a perfect 4th.
Play a note towards the bottom of your range.
Sing that note, then sing a note that’s the chosen interval above it
If you need to, you can quietly sing the in-between scale notes like in the first exercise.
How To Name An Interval You’re Hearing
You can use the same method to name an interval that you hear.
First, identify both notes of the interval by singing them. They are a little harder to pick when played together.
Sing the lower note, then sing the notes of the major scale until you hear your note match the higher note, counting notes as you sing (the starting note counts as the first note).
2 notes is a 2nd, 3 notes is a 3rd, etc. The 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th are major intervals, the 4th and 5th are perfect. (Technically the octave is also perfect, we just don’t need to say so. An octave is just called an octave.)
Try These…
Below are audio files of a few harmonic intervals. Remember to sing both notes of each interval before singing (or thinking) scale notes. To make it a little easier, the two notes are quickly played as a melodic interval before hearing the two notes together.
Name each interval using the steps outlined above:
Answers at the bottom of this post.
If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date wth new posts, please subscribe.
This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
…If you can already sing a major scale you can skip this lesson…
If you’re panicking at the thought of doing this lesson, relax… When I say “sing”, I don’t mean “sound like a real singer”! Don’t worry about tone, voice quality, breathing etc. You don’t even have to hold a note for very long. All we’re trying to do is pitch a few moderate-length notes in a comfortable part of the voice range.
The ability to sing a scale is one of the fundamental skills of musicianship. It helps develop our sense of tonality, which in turn helps us to understand and remember melodies and riffs. We also use scales to recognise, count and name intervals.
The easiest scale to sing, at least in Western culture, is the major scale. You may even know the major scale already, in solfege, as a simple melody: do, re, mi etc.
If you’re not used to singing, start on a fairly low note, so you can sing upwards from there. The exercise below starts on C, which most people can sing as a low-ish note.
A note about voices and octaves
The range of female voices and children’s voices can be represented on the treble clef. Middle C or C4 is a comfortably low note. The octave from C4 to C5 is typically a comfortable range to sing in, even for untrained voices.
In general terms, a male voice typically sounds an octave lower than a female voice. The male voice’s actual pitch range fits on the tenor (guitar) clef.
Many songbooks don’t distinguish between male and female voices. Melodies are written in the treble clef by default. When a male voice reads middle C and sings a comfortably low note, we hear C3, not C4.
This is such a natural phenomenon that we interpret this difference more as tone than as pitch. We expect male voices to sound lower than female voices.
We all “reach up” to sing a high note and “reach down” to sing a low note. These ranges within the voice range are called registers. High notes are in a high register, low notes in a low register. As humans, we can hear the effort of reaching for high or low notes as a change in register.
When female and male voices sing together, we listen more for which register they sing in (reaching up or reaching down) rather than which actual octave.
The examples and exercises in this post are in the treble clef, at the actual pitch of a typical female or children’s voice. Male voices should have no trouble singing along an octave lower as long as middle C is thought of as a low-ish note.
What Words Shall I Sing?
For beginners, start with a consonant such as “L”, “T” or “D” followed by an open mouth vowel sound such as “aah”, “oh”or “ooh”. These are the easiest sounds to control and produce a clear and stable pitch.
Examples: La la la la, Da da da da, Ta ta ta ta , Doo doo doo doo etc.
If you’re confident that you can hold a note on different syllables, you could sing the note numbers as you go, “one, two, three, four “ etc.
How To Sing A Major Scale
The following video is the scale of C major at a slow tempo, one note per bar.
In each bar, you hear the scale note first.
During the rest that follows, answer by singing the same note (indicated on the stave by a slash).
Each bar is repeated so you can check that you’re singing the right note.
Here’s the same exercise without the repeats.
Now repeat the exercise at a faster tempo.
Feel how far you need to move from one note to the next; close for 1 semitone, a little more for 2 semitones. Remember the pattern of 2- and 1-semitone intervals that make up the major scale.
As you get used to the notes, you can sing along with the video as well as singing the answers.
Here’s the whole scale without rests.
Listen to the scale of C major, then sing along with it. Repeat several times.
When it feels comfortable, listen again, then sing the scale by yourself.
You can monitor your progress by singing along to the video again.
Once you can sing it by yourself, try speeding up the tempo or singing in quavers rather than crotchets.
Here it is at a faster tempo…
Other modes
As a follow-up, you can teach yourself to sing the scale of any other modes that are used in genres that interest you, be it the natural minor, melodic and harmonic minor (coming in Part 2 of this course), other traditional modes, the blues scale etc. Look at the pattern of intervals that make up the mode as you play and sing along.
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Some parts, especially rhythmic parts but also short phrases in melodic parts such as riffs, have a bar which is repeated a number of times in succession. Rather than having to write the same notes out many times we can just write the notes for the first time, then use the musical equivalent of a ditto, the repeat bar.
As rhythms are often 2 or 4 bars long there is also a 2-bar repeat and a 4-bar repeat.
The first time, the content (of 1, 2 or 4 bars) is written in full. The bar repeat symbol is written in the bars or groups of bars over which the content should be repeated.
The number of bars of the bar repeat is reflected in the number of bars the symbol covers and the number of slashes in the symbol. As a courtesy, the number 2 or 4 is written above the 2- and 4-bar repeat bar symbol.
Optionally, every few repeats, a tally of the number of times the content is played so far (including the original written-out bar(s)) is indicated above the repeat bar. This helps keep track of which repeat bar we’re up to.
If you found this post helpful, please feel welcome to like, share or leave a comment. If you have any questions, leave them as a comment and I’ll respond as soon as I can. To stay up to date wth new posts, please subscribe.
A coda is a final section, allowing further complexity in the format of a piece. After any number of other navigational signs, the music can finish on a more conclusive section than the other section endings. On repeating the piece after a D.C or D.S. the music can jump from a point labelled “To Coda” to the coda.
The stave is broken between the end of the main piece and the coda, indicating that it can only be reached from a To Coda.
Da Capo al Coda, D.C. al Coda
(go back to the beginning and repeat until the words “To Coda”, then skip to the word “Coda”)
The piece is played again from the beginning up to the words To Coda the jumps to the Coda (final section).
Segno (sign)
The segno provides another point in the music to repeat from. In a popular music song, for example, the first section is often an introduction, only intended to play at the very start. Other sections such as verses and choruses may repeat several times but without going back to the introduction. The start of the various verse and chorus sections could be marked with the segno so that the introduction isn’t repeated.
Dal Segno or D.S.
(go back to the sign and repeat from there)
If we want to go back to a section after the beginning of the piece rather than all the way back to the beginning, we can use the segno (“sign”). On reaching the term dal segno, the piece is repeated from the sign.
The abbreviation D.S. is often used instead of the full wording.
Dal Segno al Fine, D.S. al Fine
(go back to the sign and repeat from there till the word “Fine”, meaning ”end”)
Just like Da Capo al Fine but instead of repeating from the beginning of the piece till the word ”Fine”, we repeat from the sign till the word “Fine”.
D.S. al Fine
Dal Segno al Coda, D.S. al Coda
(go back to the Segno and repeat until the words “To Coda”, then skip to the Coda)
This is like Da Capo al Coda but instead of going back to the beginning of the piece, we repeat from the Segno until the words “To Coda” then jump to the coda.
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