How To: Alternate Repeat Endings (Example 1,3,5 & 2,4,6)

[Funkybot]

Lets say I want to use alternate Repeat Endings where the first, third and fifth times around it goes to one ending, then on the second, fourth, and fifth times around it goes to another ending. How do I get the repeat endings to do this in Notion? I can't find it in the manual.

[Surfwhammy]

Lets say I want to use alternate Repeat Endings where the first, third and fifth times around it goes to one ending, then on the second, fourth, and fifth times around it goes to another ending. How do I get the repeat endings to do this in Notion? I can't find it in the manual.

I would not do this for several reasons, but there is a way to have two ending measures for a section, and it is described on page 11.14 of the "NOTION 3 User Manual" . . .

One of the potential problems is that the "ending measure" literally is limited to one measure, so you can end the repeated phrase the first time with the first ending measure and then when the phrase repeats for the second time you can end it with the second ending measure . . .

I did a quick experiment, and it doe not appear to work to increase the number of repeats, so I do not see much added value in this, although I suppose that from the perspective of computer programming it might have a bit of appeal as a type of "go to", "switch", or other type of conditional branching statment . . .

The bigger problem is that I am not convinced that using a lot of the repeat stuff will work in the scenario where you want to record the Notion 3 generated audio as soundbites in a DAW application via ReWire, although in fairness the reason I am not convinced is that I do not do it, since it appears to have great potential for being vastly confusing . . .

If I want to repeat a verse, chorus, bridge, refrain, interlude, or anything else, then I insert a bunch of empty measures; copy whatever I want to repeat; and then paste it into the newly inserted empty measures where I want it repeated, which works nicely and keeps everything vastly simple . . .

From a different perspective, it makes no sense to have a long section like verse but to end it with an alternating set of single measures, but it can make a bit of sense to split a shorter phrase into two parts with a different middle measure and end measure, where for example if the shorter phrase is "A1-A2-A3", then this might make a bit of sense:

A1-A2-A3-E1-A1-A2-A3-E2

With a repeat and different ending measures, it will look something like this, where each letter-number combination represents one measure:

||:A1-A2-A3 {E1 | E2}:||

This is more compact, which has a bit of merit, but if you decide that the "A1-A2-A3" three measure phrase is too repetitive and want to change the second repeat to its simple mirror image "A3-A2-A1", then you need to redo the entire thing, because you cannot use repeats for this:

A1-A2-A3-E1-A3-A2-A1-E2

There might be a scenario where the idea of having vastly alternating repeat endings makes sense, but none come to mind . . .

If you are familiar with some of the basic techniques in the Joseph Schillinger's "System of Musical Composition (SoMC)", there are a lot of very useful things that can be done with a simple phrase to transform it into a complete song or an entire symphony, but it is easier to do when you avoid using repeats and all the fancy stuff that in my view tends to make it difficult to understand mirroring, flipping, rotating, inverting, and so forth and so on, because repeats and all that fancy stuff basically discourages composers from doing the higher level mathematics and geometry . . .

As a quick example of a few techniques from the SoMC, consider that you like the notes of a C major triad and want to use those notes to compose a song, where the foundation is Middle C, and the E and G directly above Middle C:

{C4, E4, G4}

If you do a simple horizontal flip, then you have six notes:

C4-E4-G4-G4-E4-C4

If you then do a simple horizontal flip of the six-note phrase, you have twelve notes:

C4-E4-G4-G4-E4-C4-C4-E4-G4-G4-E4-C4

But you also can do simple vertical flips and a lot of other mathematical and geometric stuff . . .

And if you change the notes to a horn and woodwind friendly key where for example the C4 is replaced with a B4♭ and the E4 and G4 are replaced with the major third and fifth relative to B4♭, which I suppose will be D4 and F4, then you get something like this when you understand a few more of the SoMC techniques, where the truly amazing aspect is that it only takes a handful of notes and a simple rhythm pattern to create the foundation for a complete song, which is fabulous . . .

"In The Mood" (The Glenn Miller Orchestra) -- YouTube music video

Fabulous!