I don't quite agree, because I see three reasons for putting it before, and none for putting it after (whereas in the example you give of quotation marks it makes no difference):
- traditional practice, from what I see both in most of the scores I own and in all my reference books.
- more important: a singer might change his intonation depending on the punctuation, just as you change your intonation in regular speech depending on the punctuation mark (or the absence thereof) - question mark, exclamation mark, comma, period (full stop), etc. It makes no sense to have the singer wait until the end of the extension (and possibly turn a page) to discover this.
- it's easier in Finale.
Well, I wasn't trying to convert anyone to the punctuation-after-line style. I don't even use that style myself. I was just objecting to your statement about what the logic in favor of that style is, which I thought (and still think) was an oddball logic that no one who favors the style actually believes.
As for your three reasons, the second one you mentioned in an earlier post, and I think it's a good argument in favor of punctuation-before-line. The third reason is an artificial one, but, as I acknowledged in an earlier post, it's the reason that I converted.
Your first reason I think is weak. If you were to change it to "convention" you might have a better point, since it does seem as though the punctuation-after style has come to dominate. But by citing "tradition", you imply that everyone has always done it that way, which really isn't the case, as Johannes's B�renreiter example illustrates.
I think this is another case where one style gradually became dominant and then once it became secure, history was rewritten to imagine the tradition is more complete than it really is, sort of like the notion that tempo marks are always in bold.
I would say that tradition is in fact the greatest reason in favor of the punctuation-after style, since the minority that still prefers it that way does so mostly because that's what they're accustomed to seeing in the musical niche they most frequently inhabit.
As for the comparison to comma and quotation marks, I can point you to another forum where all would strenuously disagree that "it makes no difference". There is a vigorous and perpetual debate among editors and the like about whether to put punctuation inside or outside quotes. Non-engravers, even including most singers, would probably tell us that punctuation before or after the line "makes no difference".
mdl
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