In music, a notehead is the part of a

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...

, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely black or white, indicating the

note value In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the '' notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags/ beams/hooks/tails''. Unmodified note valu ...

(i.e., rhythmic duration). In a

whole note A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. Description The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow o ...

, the notehead, shaped differently than shorter notes, is the only component of the note. Shorter note values attach a stem to the notehead, and possibly beams or flags. The longer

double whole note In music, a double whole note (American), breve, or double note lasts two times as long as a whole note (or ''semibreve''). It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation. The longest notated note is the ''longa'', w ...

can be written with vertical lines surrounding it, two attached noteheads, or a rectangular notehead.Gerou, Tom & Lusk, Linda
''Essential Dictionary of Music Notation''.
Alfred Music, 1996, p. 210. An "x" shaped notehead may be used to indicate percussion, percussive effects (

ghost note In music, a ghost note is a musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played. In musical notation, this is represented by an "X" for a note head instead of an oval, or parentheses around the note head. It should not be ...

s), or speaking. A square, diamond, or box shaped notehead may be used to indicate a

natural Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

artificial harmonic Playing a string harmonic (a flageolet) is a string instrument technique that uses the nodes of natural harmonics of a musical string to isolate overtones. Playing string harmonics produces high pitched tones, often compared in timbre to a wh ...

. A small notehead can be used to indicate a

grace note A grace note is a kind of music notation denoting several kinds of musical ornaments. It is usually printed smaller to indicate that it is melodically and harmonically nonessential. When occurring by itself, a single grace note indicates eith ...

History

Noteheads ultimately derive from the

neume A neume (; sometimes spelled neum) is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation. The earliest neumes were inflective marks that indicated the general shape but not nec ...

s used to notate

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek (language), Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed ma ...

. The punctum, seen at right, is the simplest of the shapes and most clearly anticipates the modern notehead. When placed on a

clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical stave. Placing a clef on a stave assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines, which defines the pitc ...

, the position of a notehead indicates the relative pitch of a note. The development of different colors of noteheads, and the use of it to indicate rhythmic values, was the use of white

mensural notation Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for European vocal polyphonic music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measured rhythmi ...

, adopted around 1450.

Franco of Cologne Franco of Cologne (; also Franco of Paris) was a German music theorist and possibly a composer. He was one of the most influential theorists of the Late Middle Ages, and was the first to propose an idea which was to transform musical notation pe ...

, ancient composer and music theorist, codified a system of rhythm notation. He explained this system in his work, ''Ars Cantus Mensurabilis'' (“The Art of Measurable Music”), circa 1280. In this system, the relative duration of notes was indicated by the note shapes. The noteheads were rectangles, squares, or diamonds depending on the note length. This system was expanded during the Ars Nova period. Shortly before the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, scribes began to write the notes of the Franconian and Ars Nova style with open noteheads. During the Renaissance, composers added shorter note durations that used filled-in noteheads. Near the end of the 16th century, the square or diamond-shaped notes changed to the round noteheads that are used today.Burkholder, J.P., Grout, D.J., & Palisca, C.V. (2006). A history of western music 7th ed.. New York, NY: W.W Norton & Company.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:notehead Musical notation

History

See also

References