Repeat sign

The double barline with two dots that instructs the player to go back and play a passage again.

Repeat signs keep printed music compact: instead of writing a chorus out twice, the composer marks the section with dots and the performer plays it a second time. Two dots facing left at the start of a section and two facing right at the end enclose the repeated passage. Repeat signs combine with first and second endings and with da capo and dal segno directions, and getting them wrong in rehearsal is a classic source of confusion in ensembles.

Example: A song whose eight-bar verse is printed once but marked with repeat dots on both sides is played twice before the chorus.

Repeat sign

See also