Dal segno

This article is about the musical term. For the Loona yyxy song, seeBeauty & the Beat (EP).For theNational Healthalbum, seeD.S. Al Coda.

Inmusic notation,dal segno(UK:/dælˈsɛnjoʊ/,US:/dɑːlˈseɪnjoʊ/,Italian:[dalˈseɲɲo]), often abbreviated asD.S.,is used as a navigation marker. Defined as "from the sign" inItalian,D.S. appears insheet musicand instructs a musician to repeat a passage starting from the sign shown at right, sometimes called thesegnoin English.

Segno

A contrived example showing DS al FINE.Use of Dal Segno eliminates the need to write out extra measures, often many more than in this example. The notes are to be played in this order: G A B B C' A B B C' C. The MIDI file plays in the order: G A B B C A B C' C.

A similar example showing DS al CODA.The notes are to be played in this order: G A B B C' A B C

Two common variants:

• D.S. al codainstructs the musician to go back to the sign, and whenAl codaorTo codais reached jump to thecodasymbol.
• D.S. al fineinstructs the musician to go back to the sign, and end the piece at the measure markedfine.

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')....You may also see simply...D.S. in the final bar of a score, which means to repeat from...the 𝄋 sign...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).

Al segnoindicates that the player should go to the sign.Da capo al segno(D.C. al Segno), "From the beginning to the sign (𝄋)."

In operas of the 18th century, dal segnoariaswere a common alternative toda capo ariaswhich began with an openingritornello,which was then omitted in the repeat (the sign being placed after the ritornello).

Encoding

Thesegnosign is encoded in theMusical Symbols block of UnicodeasU+1D10B𝄋MUSICAL SYMBOL SEGNO.

See also

• Coda
• Da capo
• Fermata
• Repeat sign