<repeat>

The <repeat> element wraps a run of <structure> content and plays it more than once. Repeats nest, so a piece can be built from layers of them.

Parents

• <structure>
• <repeat> - a repeat may wrap another repeat

Attributes

Attribute	Required	Type	Description
times	No	integer	How many times the wrapped content plays in total, 2 or more. Default: 2.

Children

The same children <structure> takes, in any order and repeated freely:

• <annotation>
• <br>
• <direction>
• <section>
• <play>
• <repeat>

Semantics

Everything inside a <repeat> plays times times through before the score moves past it. The count is the total number of plays rather than the number of extra plays on top of the first, so times="2" plays the content twice. Two is also the default, since a <repeat> that played its content once would not be repeating anything: leave times off and the content plays twice. Wrapping two sections repeats the pair together, so A B A B, which is different from repeating each section on its own.

Nested repeats multiply. A section wrapped in a times="2" inside another times="2" plays four times.

<structure>
  <repeat times="2">
    <repeat times="2">
      <section id="s1" name="ท่อน 1" />
    </repeat>
    <section id="s2" name="ท่อน 2" />
  </repeat>
</structure>

That plays ท่อน 1 twice, then ท่อน 2 once, then repeats the whole pair again: four bars of ท่อน 1 and two of ท่อน 2 in total, in the order 1 1 2 1 1 2.

Total pass count

A section’s total pass count is what every play of it adds up to: for each <section> or <play> naming it, the product of the times values of every <repeat> enclosing that one, summed over all of them. A section played once where it is declared and again through a <play> therefore has two passes, and one declared inside no repeat at all has one. In the example above ท่อน 1 has a total pass count of 4 and ท่อน 2 has 2.

Passes are counted absolutely, straight through from the first play to the last, ignoring which layer of repeat produced them. <ending>’s pass attribute uses these absolute numbers, so pass="4" on ท่อน 1 above names the last of its four plays, and pass="2,4" names two of them.

Section order

<repeat> does not change how section order is read. The order is still the document order of the <section> elements, walked depth first through any <repeat> wrappers. See <structure>.

Conformance

• times must be an integer of 2 or greater, and defaults to 2 when absent. A <repeat> playing its content once is not a repeat; a score that plays a section once writes no <repeat> around it.
• A <repeat> must contain at least one <section> or <play>, directly or inside a nested <repeat>. A repeat wrapping only annotations and directions has nothing to play.
• Repeats nest to any depth.
• To repeat a range of lines within one section rather than the section as a whole, use <line-repeat>.