Repeat to final ending

• Sep 22, 2020 - 16:52

Hi - can you help me correctly notate the last repeat? Everything repeats well until I reach bar 41 where it should first go to "A" and thereafter to the final ending. I'm doing something wrong because it jumps to Segno instead of "A"
Thanks
Gavin

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Harlem_Nocturne repeats.mscz 39.96 KB

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• Sep 22, 2020 - 17:18

Please write out your desired roadmap using measure numbers.
I can hardly imagine that you intend for m21 & 22 to be there but be skipped during playback. Or for the start repeat of m23 to be mostly ignored.

From what is written currently, I can't even make out the desired roadmap at all.

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• Sep 23, 2020 - 12:44

For starters: that is not a simple roadmap and I expect musicians to possibly get lost when trying to follow it the first time.

Try the attached.
* m21-m26 were removed as they don't appear in your playback order at all, thus they are likely pretty much irrelevant.
* Some trickery was needed to be able to skip m5-10 on the 4th repeat as a volta is evaluated before the start repeat barline is, therefor to be able to use a volta to skip the 4th time, I've inserted a small measure, hid the barline and adjusted leading space to make the next measure visually eat it (as well as adjust measure numbering).
Currently the duration of that measure is a 1/64th, which can further be reduced by inserting an invisible tempo marking for example.

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310801-Harlem_Nocturne repeats.mscz 39.42 KB

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• Sep 23, 2020 - 14:56

Although jeetee's version probably works well, I would have to look at it more than a few times to work out the flow. if you want put the music in front of someone to play it, I would suggest not to be too eager to save paper and ink. Composers often want to use a previously written section elsewhere and if using good old pencil and paper will use cryptic repeat notation and do things like drawing circles round measures with arrows showing where they need to be used again. What would you make of this for example? I don't think any performer would be grateful if Beethoven's publisher had been "faithful to the original".

Beethoven.jpg

Using MuseScore for composition reduces the need to do this sort of thing as copying and pasting a section one wants to use again is very simple (except in some well known and discussed cases). In some ways MuseScore acts to prevent the use of such repeat shorthand as its rules are based on "common practice" in notation and therefore it only supports repeat structures that are in common usage and readily understood. When transcribing a handwritten original with "uncommon practice" I would always aim for understandability at the expense of conciseness. In other words: if in doubt (about a repeat), write it out.

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• Sep 26, 2020 - 16:16

You say this is how you want it to run but there is something very wrong. It never plays the fist time volta at 21. Do you not want that played? If so it would be much less confusing to delete it.

Things that confuse me and also probably MuseScore are:
a) the repeat at 31 - where should it go back to? It can't go back to 23 as 23 is within the 1st time volta and then you can't get back to before the first time volta to take the second time volta.
b) what does "To D" mean at the end of measure 26, 45 and 53 - it is just staff text and has no effect on the route map but I can see no D to go to.
c) there is a segno at bar 5 but no DS or DS al Coda to tell the player where to jump to the segno from
d) there are coda signs at bar 11 and 31 but no "To coda" and even if there was a "to coda" it is not clear which coda sign should the player go to?

MuseScore does its best with what you have given it but to be quite frank and blunt, it is a mess and any player that you gave that to would probably give up which would be a great shame as it sounds like it could be a great version of a classic number if the road map could be sorted out.

I thought maybe I could edit it for you but I really can not tell what it is that you are trying to achieve. Perhaps the best way for you to proceed would be to write it out as you want it played without using any repeats or jumps. Then follow that link I posted and read the primer on how to notate repeats and jumps. Then take pencil and paper and identify where repeats can be used. Use them sparingly. I would probably expect to see no more than one repeated section in something like this where the whole point is that instead of repeating the same notes you go off on a different improvisation.

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