Two codas?

• Sep 12, 2016 - 20:40

Seems like I've seen something like this before, but I decided not to transpose the song before getting there, so I didn't have a method for dealing with it.

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Apparently, Patsy Cline's famous "Walkin' After Midnight" has two codas. I see that the repeats palette has a double symbol labeled "codetta"...should I use a regular coda for one and the codetta for the second? (Will playback work properly if I do?) How do I make the segnos work in my favor, then?

This is the sheet I'm referencing. Since it's for my own copying/fun-music-book-thing, I don't mind the watermarks all over it.


Comments

It's worth keeping in mind that a song itself doens't have codas, much less two of them - it's a partricular written arrangement of a song that might happen to use a coda (or two) to convey the music. The same music could just as easily be written without codas, or at least with only one. In general, use of multiple codas is not recommended as they tend to lead to much confusion during performance, and I'd encourage you to find other ways of writiing this out without relying on this.

But FWIW, if it does become necessary to use multiple codas for whatever reason, it is possible the playback might be able to work depending on the specific roadmap you require. If you look at the Inspector, you will see there are places to give codas and segno labels and to specify for each DS or DC or "To Coda" where it jumps. Make an attempt at setting up your score, and if you still need help after experimenting with this, feel free to attach your score and describe where specifically you are having trouble.

In reply to by DRyelle

Basically, any form that can be written with a repeat can be written out with no repeat - just write the section out twice (using copy and paste of course). Similarly, a DS back to a given point can be placed by another copy of the passage you are jumping to, and of course that copied passage would then naturally be followed directly by the coda passage. So, instead of

A (Segno) ||: B :|| (To Coda) C || (Coda) D

You could simply have

A B B C B D

and it is much easier to follow.

I'm not saying you should never have *any* repeats, but a form that requires a performer to have to jump twice (once for the DS, once for the To Coda) creates two opportunities for soemthing to go wrong, and if the only benefit is saving you having to write out six measures of music (an all-too-common case), it's seldom a good tradeoff. Again, without knowing more about the score anbd the intended roadmap, it's hard to be more specific about *how* to do it.

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