reference.book Page 298 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
4. Playback & video
Dal segno (D.S.) and da capo (D.C.) The Italian term “dal segno” literally means “from the sign.” In most music you will see either D.S. al Fine (which means “go back to the $ sign and play the music again until you come to the bar marked Fine, then stop”) or D.S. al Coda (which means “go back to the $ sign and play the music again until you come to the bar marked To Coda, then jump to the coda”). Similarly, “da capo” literally means “from the head,” i.e. the start of the song or piece. Just as with D.S., in most music you will either see D.C. al Fine or D.C. al Coda. You may also see simply D.C. or D.S. in the final bar of a score, which means to repeat from the start of the score or the $ sign respectively, then stop at the end. In music, these instructions always appear at the end of the bar from which you have to jump back (either to the $ sign or to the start of the piece). To input these instructions: Select the barline where the player has to jump back in the song Choose Create Text Other System Text Repeat (D.C./D.S./To Coda). (It’s important to
use this text style rather than Tempo because it automatically attaches to the end of the bar.) A flashing caret appears. Now right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) to see the word menu, which includes the text you need – enter it in the score simply by clicking it in the menu. If you type the words yourself, be sure to use the correct case (i.e. type “Fine”, not “fine”, as the latter won’t play back correctly).
Creating a segno If the player has to jump back to a segno, you do of course need to put the segno symbol in the right place. To do this: Select the note at the start of the bar to which the player has to jump back Choose Create Symbol (shortcut Z for “zymbol”) The segno symbol ($) is right at the top of the dialog, in the row labeled Repeats. Click it once
to select it, and make sure the Attach to option is set to System. Click OK, and the segno is created in your score.
Fine and To Coda The final special pieces of text used in repeat structures are Fine (which shows where the player should stop playing the song if they’ve previously jumped back from a D.S. or D.C. instruction), and To Coda (which shows where the player should jump forward to the coda, if they’ve previously jumped back from a D.S. al Coda or D.C. al Coda instruction). Both of these instructions occur at the end of bars, and are entered the same way as D.S. and D.C. – see Dal segno (D.S.) and da capo (D.C.) above.
Repeat bars To create a repeat bar, 2.27 Repeat bars. Sibelius plays back repeat bars automatically.
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