Bernard Hill writes: | | And a fermata over the final bar has no meaning either. You could put it | over the final note, but a fermata over a barline means "a pause here" | and that has no meaning at the end, I suggest.
Actually, that's not an uncommon thing in printed music, though it is somewhat pointless. It probably comes about because the fermata symbol has long had two competing meanings, a hold/pause, and the literal Italian meaning of "close", i.e., "end here". In music before 1800 or so, it merely marked the end of a piece of music. The confusion probably came about because of the Romantic-era practice of slowing down and stretching all endings. I'd guess that the practice of putting a fermata over a bar line came about from the feeling that putting it on the note is wrong, because you don't end when you reach that note. You end when you finish the last note. So obviously the fermata should be after the last note, either just before the final bar line or above it. This is a bit of a silly line of reasoning, but it would explain why some people think it goes over the bar line. Anyway, I've long been impressed by how variable (and sloppy) printed music notation is. Every publisher has their own set of rules. And they are all "standard". To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
