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The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow oval—like a half note (or minim)—but with no note stem (see Figure 1). Since it is equal to four quarter notes, it occupies the entire length of a measure in 4 4 time. Other notes are multiples or fractions of the whole note.
Note Rest American name British name Relative value Dotted value Double dotted value Triple dotted value; large, duplex longa, or maxima [1] [2] (occasionally octuple note, [3] octuple whole note, [4] or octuple entire musical note) [5]
Large (Latin: Maxima) / Octuple whole note [3] Long / Quadruple whole note [3] Breve / Double whole note: Semibreve / Whole note: Minim / Half note: Crotchet / Quarter note [4] [5] Quaver / Eighth note For notes of this length and shorter, the note has the same number of flags (or hooks) as the rest has branches. Semiquaver / Sixteenth note
For a note in 4/4 time, "whole" means an entire (or 'whole') measure of beats: 4 beats. In 3/4 time, though, a whole note would be written as a dotted half note tied to a quarter note. For a rest, "whole" always means an entire measure. That symbol hanging from the second line means "Do not play at all during this measure."
4 implies a bar construction of four quarter-parts of a whole note (i.e., four quarter notes), 4 3 implies a bar construction of four third-parts of it. These signatures are of utility only when juxtaposed with other signatures with varying denominators; a piece written entirely in 4 3, say, could be more legibly written out in 4 4.
A longa in white-mensural notation. A longa rest (modern form) worth two breves. A longa (pl. longae, or sometimes longe), long, quadruple note (Am.), or quadruple whole note is a musical note that could be either twice or three times as long as a breve (Am.: double whole note, or double note), four or six times as long as a semibreve (Am.: whole note), that appears in early music.
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When an entire bar is devoid of notes, a whole (semibreve) rest is used, regardless of the actual time signature. [4] Historically exceptions were made for a 4 2 time signature (four half notes per bar), when a double whole (breve) rest was typically used for a bar's rest, and for time signatures shorter than 3