You’ve probably seen a lot of repeat signs in your music:
There is a mentality a lot of musicians have that these are optional – but are they really?
As a teacher, I would commonly be asked by students why repeat signs are used. The simple answer is to save paper! It really is that simple. Often it’s easier to utilize repeat signs then to write all the notes again. There are times when repeat signs are used in a piece in one edition, and in another edition, the notes are written out. You would probably never consider leaving out the written notes in this case. So why leave out the repeat in the other instance?
You should never go into a piece expecting repeat signs to be optional; they should be respected just as if the notes were written down in their entirety. There are times when I’ve heard musicians take extremely slow tempos in pieces and inevitably leave out the repeats. If repeats don’t seem to work, maybe your tempo is too slow.
So to answer the question, are repeat signs really important? Yes! Try playing the repeats in your music whenever there isn’t time constraints in your performance and you will be rewarded with the musical form as the composer intended.
Thanks again for joining me Robert Estrin Robert@LivingPianos.com