Repeats

[kghayesh]

I had a question.
What do you do in your performance concerning repeats that are stated in the music. Do you do the repeats exactly as stated in the score or ignore them or do some and ignore some or what...
My teacher tells me to ignore them all, but i am not in favour of that..
For example, When something in the score is written as ||: bla bla bla :||. What should i do?

[sonatainfsharp]

When in doubt, always take all repeats.

A few decades ago, people stopped taking repeats in Classical era music because everything in sonata-allergro form was repeated by default. These days, however, people have been taking all repeats because they are there, right?

Whenever I compose my music, I expect repeats to be taken--that is why they are there in the first place.

Unless you can cite a very specific reason to not take a repeat, ignoring them doesn't make much sense...

[faulty_damper]

You need to be more specific in your question as to what music you are thinking of when you question whether or not to repeat.

If in a sonta-allegro form, as Sonata in Fa dièse mentioned, you should take the repeat.  Why?  Because repetition of the main ideas ingrains it so that the rest of the movement can be better comprehended.  If you do not repeat it, ideas will be lost and so will the rest of the movement.

If in binary form, like a Bach prélude from the Well-Tempered Clavier, it depends.  It depends on whether you have learned how to take repeats.  Taking a repeat in such a form requires much musical skill.  You do not want to take it again in a manner that adds absolutely nothing to the music other than a tautalogy for extended time.

If in a theme and variation form, like Beethoven's God Save the Queen, you can choose to take the repeats or not in some of the variations.  There are some variations that must be repeated because it reinforces certain ideas that will later be used.  Other variations may not need to be repeated perhaps because it is not so much a interesting variation or because it does little except as a transitionary variation into a more interesting one.  In God Save the Queen, it was written in a manner that allows for interpretive freedom which means you can add embellishments, both melodic and rhythmic.

Much of Baroque period music was written in a manner that allowed for much embellishments.  If you repeated it the same way, it would sound... repetitive.


I would question very much your teacher who says to ignore them all.  I can't possibly believe that is what he actually thinks, unless you are at a University and taking the repeats takes too much time.  In which case, your teacher is still wrong but professors do not want to hear certain music repeated over and over many times each semester - they just want to hear it and give you a grade.

I think this type of instruction, not taking the repeats, is most unmusical and it hinders musical development.  I had severe difficulty learnind a very easy Haydn sonata (Hob.XVI/12 in A dur) because I was not able to hear the music in my head because I was told not to take the repeat - it did not make musical sense to me.

Learn to take repeats.

[Kassaa]

I have a book on mozart by Michael Davidson (very good book btw) in which he says how to play each mozart piano piece. (ornaments and sh*t) With some pieces, he says not to repeat and some pieces you have. He gives very good reasons for that.

[bernhard]

Certain examination boards (e.g. ABRSM) instruct you to ignore all repeats during exams. The only reason for this is to save time (the examiner’s time, that is). Maybe this is what your teacher is referring to.

In all other circumstances repeats should be observed. After all, the composer put them there, so you can assume s/he wanted the repeats.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[squigly]

Have u ever played the"Turkish March"? (Mozart) It would be the half without the repeats... ...  

[maxy]

When doing repeats, the overall perception should be " wow, this music is so nice: to play it only once is not enough".  If you feel you said all you had to say (musically)in one statement, forget the repeats, you will only bore your audience.