How do you put a fermata over a default whole rest?

[BurtGoldstein]

How do you put a fermata over a default whole rest?

Articulations seem to only go with real whole rests. In 4/8, empty bars have default whole rests that look the same in every meter. It looks odd to follow one of those with a 1/2 rest.

I could enter a 4 beat rest and tell Finale to ignore the fact there are too many beats to a bar. But that seems to invite trouble in the future - I imagine music getting reflowed to the right or something caused by my forgetting I've stashed the wrong number of beats in a bar.

[Peter Thomsen]

Probably you have already found out that the plug-in Change to Real Whole Rests will insert a 4 Quarters rest - which is not what you want.


You could enter the 4/8 Real Whole Rest as a hidden tuplet:
8 Eighths in the space of 4 Eighths

To hide the tuplet, set both Number and Shape to Nothing.

[mmike]

the plug-in Change to Real Whole Rests will insert a 4 Quarters rest

Is this a Mac thing? On my windows system the plug-in creates a real whole rest with its usual appearance (not 4 quarters) and a fermata can be applied without any problem.

[motet]

I think Peter meant a rest that lasts for four quarters, not four quarter rests. The tuplet is a way to avoid overstuffing the bar, but I personally live with the overstuffing. It's hard to imagine me forgetting that Ive overstuffed a measure with a whole rest and a fermata, especially in a score with music in other parts.

I use a Lua script to make these. After you've entered notes in a measure in all the staves with notes, you select the "stack" and the script will put in fermata-ed whole rests in all selected empty staves without notes. I'm happy to provide it if you want, though I'm afraid I don't want to get you up to speed with Lua.

[BuonTempi]

The fact that such a common occurrence couldn't be addressed in over 30 years, says it all really.