In music notation, dal segno (, , ), abbreviated D.S., is a direction to the musician to repeat some of the piece. It means "from the sign" in Italian, the sign being a symbol printed on the sheet music. The abbreviation D.S. appears on the music sheet at the point where the musician must repeat a passage. At another point on the music sheet, the sign (shown at right) indicates the passage to repeat. The sign is called the segno in English.
When music is being read and there is a segno at the top of a measure, the musician continues playing without acting upon it except to remember where it is. It alerts the musician to expect a D.S. later in the piece. Likewise, if there is a fine or coda symbol printed at the top of a measure, it is ignored until a subsequent D.S. al fine or D.S. al coda instructs the musician to use those notations.
Variants The three main variants are:
D.S. instructs the musician to go back to the sign and continue playing. The next time the D.S. is encountered, it should be passed over without action. D.S. al coda instructs the musician to go back to the sign, and when Al coda or To coda is reached, immediately go to the coda symbol. D.S. al fine instructs the musician to go back to the sign and play until reaching the measure marked fine, meaning end.
The Sibelius 5 Reference manual had the following description:
Al segno indicates 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, a dal segno aria was a common alternative to a da capo aria, which began with an opening ritornello, and which was then omitted in the repeat (the sign being placed after the ritornello).
Encoding The segno sign is encoded in the Musical Symbols block of Unicode as .
See also Coda Da capo Fermata Repeat sign
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