Re: Alternatives in the *middle* of a volta

[Tim McNamara]

On Feb 14, 2010, at 3:04 PM, Peter Chubb wrote:

> > "Tim" == Tim McNamara <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Tim> On Feb 14, 2010, at 2:54 AM, Peter Chubb wrote:
>
> > > Is there a sane way to do this?
>
> Tim> Thinking as a player, I'd rather see this as a coda
>
> It's only one bar in the middle.  I'd like to
> get it onto one page --- the only obvious to me alternative would mean
> repeating the verse music after the repeat, so you'd have:
>
>   |: verse ... | normal_ending || chorus ... :| verse ... |  
> final_ending ||

The song structure is verse-chorus-verse-and-end, correct?  Basically  
ABA' structure.  Using a coda should not take any more space on the  
page and IMHO would be more readable:

||:  Verse...  coda mark | normal_ending || chorus... markup "D.C. al  
Coda":||
| coda mark  final_ending... markup "fine" ||

This is what codas are often used for, in jazz at least; probably  
half of the songs I play have something like this.  Having a bar I'd  
have to skip in the middle of the score would be problematic IMHO- it  
interrupts the visual flow of information and introduces a higher  
likelihood of errors in reading.  It's best to put the end of the  
song at the end of the page, in most cases (there are exceptions like  
the AABA format if it is just scored as AAB with D.C. al Fine noted  
at the end of the B section; "Con Alma" by Dizzy Gillepsie in the  
Real Book springs to mind as an example).

This is perhaps not an issue in a piece that is going to be rehearsed  
and possibly even memorized before it is performed.  In jazz I am  
often playing a song that I've never seen before and possibly have  
never heard (or at least don't remember very well), so lack of  
ambiguity and obvious intent is essential to me.  Someone arranging a  
chart for church music or a classical group might see this differently.