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To the sign: in D.C. al segno, go back to the beginning and play as far as the segno sign; printed alone, an instruction to go to the sign. Not to be confused with dal segno, “from the sign”.
Printed at the end of a section as part of a jump instruction — D.C. al segno, or D.C. al 𝄋 with the sign drawn — telling the player where the repeated passage stops or where to go. The sign itself is printed above the staff at its bar; the reader must find it, often pages earlier.
Al segno belongs to the economy of repeats: it lets you reuse a long passage without writing it out. Use it only when the route is unambiguous — one sign, a clear end point — and say what happens after the sign, with Fine or a coda instruction. Because al segno and dal segno are easily confused at a glance, spell the route out in words if there is any risk of a wrong turn.
Al segno is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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