Can To Coda work on the first repetition of a section?

Help
1

I’ve been a subscriber here since very early on, but I’ve only recently tried using the more sophisticated chart features like To Coda and Ending Brackets, and I’m having a little trouble getting quite what I want. I don’t know if this is a feature request, or just a request for help. Either way, it’s kind of a long read, so TL/DR:

I’m not sure I understand how the charting feature “To Coda” works, especially how it works in sections that repeat more than once. Maybe what I want/need is for “To Coda” to have an assignable number similar to the “End brackets” feature, so I can get the To Coda to apply to the first of two (or more) repetitions of a section. In way more detail:

Have a look at my version of Thinking Of Home, a very simple bluegrass song which I know from the playing of Vern Williams. It has a full break to start, two verses, and an “extra” chorus, so it looks like this:

break verse1 chorus break verse2 chorus break chorus

I created a Verse section and a Chorus section. The break is on the verse chords so I have that section set to play twice, once for the instrumental break and again for a vocal verse. However, I’d like it to play with an extra couple of boom chucks at the end of those breaks followed by a verse (1st & 2nd breaks). To accomplish that I put two extra cells at the end of the section, and then put "Ending Bracket 1” in the next to last cell. That works great, so the break has the extra beats but the verse skips them and goes straight to the chorus.

So far so good, but as it stands it will play break/verse/chorus over and over, and I want it to play through the whole song just once. Remember, this song has an “extra” chorus, so there’s no vocal verse after the third break. No problem, I just set “Auto Finish” to 3 and use To Coda to skip straight from the break to the extra chorus. This works great when I put the To Coda on the last cell of the section, which only play the first time through the section (see above). But here’s the problem:

I actually don’t want those extra beats at the end of the last break before the final chorus. I only want them on the first two breaks, not the third. I thought I could just move the “To Coda” to the last cell before the extra beats, but that doesn’t work. What happens instead is the section plays twice and then the “To Coda” kicks in, i.e. it’s ignored the first time through and I end up with an entire extra play of the verse section that I don’t want.

Maybe there’s a much simpler way to do this that I don’t understand, in which case I hope someone will enlighten me. Or, I’d just like to ask for a feature enhancement: give the To Coda a number (similar to Ending Brackets), so I can give mine a “1” and StrumMachine knows that I want it to happen on the first repetition of that section.

If you got this far, thanks for your patience, and thanks for any advice or suggestions.
Dan
p.s. I realize I can get what I want without using To Coda at all, by adding another copy of the verse section (sans extra beats) set to “last time only” just before the last chorus. I’m just trying to cut down on repetition. It already bugs me a little that I have to have the extra copy of the chorus section. :slight_smile:

2

Not sure I get all of this. But read the Coda highlight-it is ending instruction. That said, in the first part I’d think about removing the coda. Then have the 1st ending start at beginning of the next to last measure: 1] GGGG. Then after that, have the 2nd ending be what you now have in your 1st ending: 2]GG. That may help on part of your problem. I think you need 2 endings for the 2 repeats. The fallback position is to repeat everythng one section or piece at a time if you have to make modifications within a part. Hope this helps a little.

3

Thanks for the reply. I’m not sure I understood (and tested) your suggestion correctly but it didn’t do quite what I want. In any case, the GREAT news is that playing around with your suggestion helped me understand how To Coda and the Ending brackets work when used in tandem (which is more or less exactly the way I was asking for, I just didn’t realize it). So, here’s a little sample that works the way I want (set Auto Repeat to 2 if you want to test it out):

Maybe that’s exactly what you were suggesting? All I know for sure is problem solved, and I’ve updated my Thinking of Home copy accordingly. Thank you!

Dan

4

Wasn’t exactly sure, but figured if you understood the use of Coda better you’d figure out that it only works for last time around. You have to have auto-finish on.
The only difference if I had done it would have been to name the “Ending” section as “Coda”. Sometimes the Strum will automatically create a section for you and name it “Coda”. I see it goes to whatever section you indicate is last time only, though. We were lucky it picked up your last section as the coda. Glad I could be of help.

5

I always understood that To Coda only works on the last “lap” of auto-finish. My question was only ever about getting it to work on the first play of an individual section that itself repeats. Now I understand I can use End Brackets to specify that. Thanks.

6

Thanks for helping out @JosephLavariere!

Yeah, To Coda only works during the last repetition of a section, which is consistent with how other software works and my understanding of how it works in sheet music. But ending brackets are an excellent workaround.

Eventually we’ll have a more robust “Arrangements” feature to more easily recreate arrangements like your Thinking of Home example without having to mess around with To Coda or other such shenanigans.