Fermata
A fermata, an arc over a dot, means hold: the note or rest under it is held longer than its written value, for as long as the performer or conductor chooses. It is also called a pause or hold.
How to read it
The fermata sits over a note, chord or rest, or under it when turned upside down. How long the hold lasts is left to the performer or conductor and the character of the music. Over a barline it usually means a short break between sections.
Also searched as: pause.
Other names
Fermata is Italian, from fermare, to stop. In English the sign is also called a pause, and Stainer and Barrett’s dictionary (1898) calls hold an old English name for it.
An older meaning
Gehrkens (1914) records that a fermata over a double bar once marked the end of a piece, as the word Fine does now, and that it was first used in part-writing to show where each voice was to stop. Elson’s dictionary (1905) still gives the end-of-piece meaning.
More music symbols
Sources
- Music Notation and Terminology, Karl W. Gehrkens, 1914, A. S. Barnes Company (Project Gutenberg), Chapter IV, §44; Appendix A
- Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of Musical Terms, John Stainer and W. A. Barrett, new and revised edition, 1898, Novello (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Fermata; Hold
- Elson's Music Dictionary, Louis C. Elson, 1905, Oliver Ditson Company (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Pause (Eng.)
- SMuFL: Holds and pauses, Standard Music Font Layout, glyph table U+E4C0–U+E4DF, W3C Music Notation Community Group, U+E4C0–U+E4C1
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research