Quote Originally Posted by nimbleswitch View Post
...Apparently there are those in programming who feel that is the most common arrangement, i.e., for D.C. to replay the intro. I don't get that, personally, but that's what they say when asked. But D.S. Is a way around it anyway, so . . .
A few comments on this (and for anyone interested)
1
Assuming you have indicated the IN (intro) and at least an A section (to indicate the end of the intro and beginning of the song), any chorus count (repeats) greater than 1 results in the song being played from the A section again.
2
You can use opening repeats at the A section (obviously paired with a closing repeat subsequent to this).
3
The Segno is used to indicate any measure you need to return to (unless it is the beginning, where the D.C. is used).

These are three ways to return to the A section. By changing D.C. to mean the A section seems superfluous and would mean using the Segno at the introduction for some songs, which would potentially be confusing for many musicians who would wonder why D.C. had not been used.

I think I understand your argument. Historically (if I remember correctly) D.C. would have been used for the ternary form, arias, minuets with the form ABA (as we would think of it today). Some arias would have had an introduction; but the typical form, a repeat of the first section after the second. Obviously songs written more recently (many here at the forum) have introductions—hence (I assume) your preference for D.C. to return to the A section. But the general understanding is that it indicates a return to the beginning.

Some songs like Stevie Wonder's Overjoyed, or The Carpenters' Superstar repeat to the introduction. With existing users having already created their song forms, it would be difficult (and confusing) to change the player's behavior, without everyone having to check their charts.

Yes, it is probably possible to have two kinds of D.C., but this would be confusing unless implemented carefully, and the convention is only the one kind. I think you might have mentioned Finale's use of D.C. (in another thread) where it can be specified which measure it returns to. I can see it might be useful for indicating a measure after a pickup measure or cadenza or when using hidden barlines for instance, where Finale is keeping internal count of the initial measures as it knows them. However I would think this is reasonably rare for the kind of music iReal Pro has been designed for.

If you have further comments, please feel free to post further. Others might like to comment here also.