Mr. Steve Schwartz wrote: >How long do you hold a rest with a fermata? That's a prime example of an >inexact rest, especially when there are fermatas over different note values >in different parts in the same measure. There are other situations as >well, some of which I've mentioned in a longer post, and all drawn from >actual examples of music. So it really isn't my suggestion (sneer quotes >noted) after all. fer-ma-ta (fer ma'tuh) n. pl. <-tas, -te> (-ta). Music 1. Also called <hold, pause.> the sustaining of a note, chord, or rest for a duration longer than the indicated time value, with the length of the extension at the performer's discretion. My quibble was that you stated that there were two types of rests -- internal and external. Perhaps I misunderstood you original statement (actually, I hope that I did). I think that we are not really disagreeing here. I was under the impression that you (or perhaps someone else) had said that rests were "unimportant". This is patently untrue. >There are also notes that are held inexact durations, particularly in >20th-century music. You want specific examples? How about the storm and >prayer scene in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, where each character in effect >prays at his own speed? Isn't this more a matter of "tempo ad libitum" not rests? >Yes, these are examples of exact rests, always allowing for the desideratum >that music made by humans isn't mechanically exact. Nor would we want it to be [mechanically exact]. Can you imagine the accelerandos and decelerandos of, say, the 2nd movement of Schuman's 2nd Symphony without some degree of "humanness" to them? Dave Pitzer