Repeat Signs and How to Read Them

In lesson 11 we introduce repeat signs. Musical phrases and passages often occur more than once. Writing out every repetition would use more space and make the score harder to read. Repeat signs keep the notation compact and clear.

Let us look at the most common repeat signs.

The symbols highlighted in the example are repeat barlines. What do they tell us to do?

Play the passage enclosed by the repeat signs again.

If the repeat starts at the very beginning of the piece, the opening repeat barline can be omitted, as in this example.

The next example shows a repeat placed in the middle of a piece.