Repeat Sign
A repeat sign is a double bar line with two dots. Play up to it, then go back to the matching sign facing the other way — or to the beginning if there is none — and play the section again.
The dots always face the music to be repeated. That one detail is enough to read any repeat correctly, including the ones nested inside a longer form.
How To Spot Repeat Sign
A thick and thin bar line with two dots stacked either side of the middle line.
Find It In Thirty Seconds
Find a repeat in any piece and trace the route with a finger before playing: forward to the sign, back to its partner, forward again. Sight-reading repeats wrong is a navigation problem, not a playing one.
Open any piece of sheet music on this site and do it now. Reading is a recognition skill, and recognition is built by finding things, not by reading about them.
Related Topics...
How to Read Sheet Music: Learn how to read sheet music using interactive lessons from Chordzy. Or browse our various reading music topics.
Music Notation Glossary: Every symbol on a page of piano music, explained in one sentence each — clefs, note values, rests, accidentals, dynamics and repeat marks.
Bar Line: A bar line is the vertical line crossing the staff that divides music into measures. A double bar line marks the end of a section, and a thick double bar marks…
Coda: A coda is the ending section of a piece, marked with a circle-and-cross symbol. You jump to it from a To Coda mark after taking a D.C. or D.S. repeat.
Da Capo (D.C.): D.C. means go back to the beginning. D.C. al Fine means go back and stop at the word Fine; D.C. al Coda means go back and jump to the coda when you reach the c…
First and Second Endings: First and second endings are the bracketed bars marked 1. and 2. Play the first ending, take the repeat, then skip it and play the second ending instead.
Readers Also Look For
Natural Sign: A natural (♮) cancels a sharp or a flat, returning the note to its unaltered pitch for the rest of the measure.
More in This Section
Sharp: A sharp (♯) raises a note by one semitone — the very next key to the right, black or white.
Sixteenth Note: A sixteenth note has two flags (or two beams) and lasts a quarter of a beat in common time. Four of them fit into one quarter-note beat.