Weird musical notation?

are the "tew"s always over rests? no clue really

 

I'm guessing some sort of OCD that forced the last guy to have to put some sort of syllable in place if a rest. Or perhaps it was someone with horrible timing who had to assign a sound to rests.

 

Not familiar with the music, so maybe it's just a reminder that some instrument/voice is playing 3 quarter notes before that? Maybe since there's an "a tempo" right after that, it could be an indication that the 3 notes being played (or maybe 3 beats/cues being given by a conductor) are not in time, but they are indeed quarter notes.

I know things like that have caught me when playing in concert band and the conductor decides to place fermatas/rits wherever he/she feels appropriate even when they're not written in.

 

Never seen that either, but based on the 'A Tempo' after bar 38, I'm guessing it has something to do with a tempo shift. Is there some sort of dufus or half time happening there?

Looked for it on wiki, and there is no reference to that notation.

 

What's happening on stage? Most of the time when you see words written in over an entrance, it's a cue to give the player a "head's up" that you're about to kick into the next number or pick the music back up after an interlude of dialogue in the play part of the musical, so someone will write in the words in the play that will indicate the music is about to start.. Since MY FAIR LADY concerns the attempts of a linguistics expert to change the Cockney accent of a young woman, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a verbal entrance cue....

 

If it occurred once in OP's chart I would agree that that's a very plausible explanation.
But multiple times? ("all over the book") I know My Fair Lady has some verbal leitmotifs, but I've played and seen the production enough times to confidently say "tew tew tew" doesn't occur throughout the libretto.

The thing that's most striking -- and befuddling -- to me is that the calligraphy doesn't appear to be something a previous player or MD added after the fact, it looks like something the copyist wrote into the bass part. Curiouser and curiouser...

 

Obsolete British dialect:

4. dialect
a state of worry or excitement

Is it possibly a reminder to the conductor to convey that to the musicians? Is Professor Higgins emphatically emphasizing certain non-Cockney diction at that point? Like to vs two.

Tew definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary