The Fermata Joke

A high school neighborhood friend recently gave me what has to be the most esoteric joke I’ve ever seen, this cartoon created by her friend Thomas Stumpf:

But my knowledge of music is legendary for its nonexistence so I had to ask Linda, an accomplished pianist and piano teacher to explain the in-joke:

“'fermata' in Italian, means 'stop'; stop signs in Italy look just like ours, but say 'fermata'! In music, it means to just wait on the note, for as long as seems to be the best length, in context of the music. The fermata sign is the top half a circle with a dot inside. The fermata is over a rest,(which is silence), which would mean to be silent for more time than the time value of the rest, which is 2 beats.”

So, there are no notes on the score which means there is no sound and the fermata above means that one should keep doing what is written below for as long as necessary, which is nothing or: “shut up.”