Coda
The coda sign, a circle crossed by a vertical and a horizontal line, marks a jump to the coda, the closing section of a piece. When a piece is repeated from the beginning, the player goes as far as the coda sign and then skips to the coda.
How to read it
Coda is Italian for tail. The sign is used with repeats: D.C. e poi la coda means go back to the beginning, play to the coda sign, then skip to the coda. The coda itself is the closing passage added after the main form of a piece is complete.
Look-alikes
The Segno marks where to go back to; the coda sign marks where to leave. Both appear in the same pieces.
Other meanings of coda
Stainer and Barrett’s dictionary (1898) lists older senses of the word as well: the tail of a note, meaning its stem, and a few bars added to close a canon.
Read next
- Next in Music symbolsWhole noteA whole note is an open oval with no stem. It is the longest note in everyday use: it lasts as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. In Britain it is called a semibreve.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of BurundiA white diagonal cross divides the flag into red triangles at top and bottom and green ones at the sides, with a white disc in the centre holding three red six-pointed stars. The Presidency of Burundi says the red recalls the sacrifices made to defend the nation and win independence, the green hope and prosperity, the white peace and unity, and that the three stars traditionally stand for the national motto, “Unity, Work, Progress”.
More music symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles or crosses.
Sources
- Music Notation and Terminology, Karl W. Gehrkens, 1914, A. S. Barnes Company (Project Gutenberg), Chapter IV, §39
- Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of Musical Terms, John Stainer and W. A. Barrett, new and revised edition, 1898, Novello (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Coda
- Primer of Facts about Music, M. G. Evans, 1909, Theodore Presser Co. (Internet Archive, University of Toronto), §88
- Elson's Music Dictionary, Louis C. Elson, 1905, Oliver Ditson Company (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Da capo e poi la coda
- SMuFL: Repeats, Standard Music Font Layout, glyph table U+E040–U+E04F, W3C Music Notation Community Group, U+E048
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 26, 2026. How we research
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