mike’s music pages

How many times have you become lost in the music because there was a repeat and you didn’t know where to go? It has happened to everyone who sings. Even when you know what Dal Segno means, sometimes it’s hard to find where to go. We won’t address Dal Segno in this lesson, but you will learn about simple repeats and 1st and 2nd endings.

I Don’t Want To Write The Same Music Again!

Fig. 1

Music often contains sections that are repeated. Instead of writing the repeated section again, the composer will supply instructions that tell the performer to play or sing a section again. For simple repeats composers use repeat signs. The beginning of the repeated section is indicated by a start repeat symbol and the end of the repeated section is indicated by an end repeat symbol. See Figure 1. When you encounter an end repeat sign, you are to go back until you see the start repeat sign and sing that section again. This means that the section between the repeat signs is to be sung or played twice. If you see an end repeat sign but no start repeat sign, then you are to go back to the beginning of the music.

Fig. 2a

Figure 2a illustrates a case where there is an end repeat sign but no start repeat sign. In this case you would sing or play through the eighth measure, then go back to the beginning and sing or play the entire section again.

Fig. 2b

In figure 2b I have added a start repeat sign at the beginning of measure 2, so in this case you would sing through measure 8, then go back and sing the section from measure 2 through measure 8 again.

First and Second Endings

Fig. 3

In each case illustrated in figures 2a and 2b, the repeated section is sung with no changes, but sometimes the composer wants to repeat a section and add a different ending. Figure 3 illustrates such a case. I have added two different endings and labled them 1 and 2. These are called first and second endings. First and second endings are notated by numbered brackets over each ending. The endings can be any number of measures in length. In this illustration each ending is one measure in length. Note the end repeat sign between the endings. This means that you sing through measure 7, go back to measure 2 and repeat through measure 6, skip the first ending and sing the second ending. In Figure 3 the second ending is shown at the end of the piece, but it could come anywhere in the piece.

Now that you know about repeats and 1st and 2nd endings, see if you can identify some in your music.