Tag: second time bar

A great deal of music is made up of sections which are played more than once. Special barlines and other symbols can be used to indicate such sections, substantially reducing the number of pages required to notate a piece.

In a score, navigation text and signs are written above the stave for each part in Bold.

Navigation works a bit like a model railway, with signals directing the player through and around various sections of the music.

Although originally devised for music notation, navigation markings can equally be used on text-based notation such as chord charts or abc notation.

Navigation markings

A section end is a double barline of the usual thickness. As the name suggests, it indicates the end of a section of the music. When you see a section end, keep playing unless other symbols indicate a pause in the timing.

The final bar is a double barline with an extra-thick second line. It indicates the end of the whole piece unless other symbols indicate otherwise.

An end repeat looks like a final bar but with two dots to the left.

• If no begin repeat has been passed, go back to the beginning of the piece and play it again, else go back to the nearest begin repeat sign and play again.
• Once you reach the end repeat a second time, continue onwards.

A begin repeat sign is the reverse of an end repeat. When you encounter one, keep playing: it has no meaning until you reach an end repeat sign. Think of a begin and end repeat as a pair of brackets enclosing a section which is to be played twice.

The words “play x times” above an end repeat indicate that the repeated section is played the total number of times indicated here by “x”, such as “play 3 times”.

In a repeated section, first and second time bars allow different endings for leading back to the start after the first time through and playing on after the repeat. First and second time bars can be made up of more than one bar, as indicated by the length of the line.

Da Capo or D.C.

As well as repeated sections, the whole piece may be repeated, including any internal repeats. A repeat sign at the end is confusing because someone reading the music would be looking for a matching start repeat that doesn’t exist. Such larger scale repeats are indicated with the Italian words “da Capo” (“from the head”), to play again from the beginning.

The abbreviation D.C. is often used instead of the full wording.

Note: In some genres, internal repeated sections are not repeated the second time.

The diagram below shows how the navigational symbols are interpreted. To keep the example tiny, each section is represented by only 2 bars (at a very fast tempo!)

All navigation markings must be written over a double bar. If there is no repeat sign or final double bar, a section end (thin double bar) must be used.

Da Capo al Fine, D.C. al Fine 

(go back to the beginning and repeat until the word “Fine”)

The piece is played again from the beginning, stopping the second time on the word “Fine” (“end”).

For some more navigation options, please visit How To Navigate Music 2: Animated Tour.

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