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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.
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 anote head
In music, a notehead is the part of a Musical note, note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the Staff_(music)#Staff_positions, staff indicates the Pitch_(music), pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate Duration ( ...
in the shape of a hollow oval—like a half note
In music, a half note (American) or minim (British) is a Musical note, note played for half the duration of a whole note (or semibreve) and twice the duration of a quarter note (or crotchet). It was given its Latin name (''minima'', meaning "le ...
(or ''minim'')—but with no note stem
In musical notation, stems are the "thin, vertical line (geometry), lines that are directly connected to the notehead, otehead." Stems may point up or down. Different-pointing stems indicate the voice (music), voice for polyphonic music writ ...
(see Figure 1). Since it is equal to four quarter notes, it occupies the entire length of a measure in time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
.
Other notes are multiples or fractions of the whole note. For example, a double whole note
In music, a double whole note (American), breve (British) 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 next longest notated note is the ...
(or ''breve'') lasts twice the duration of the whole note, a half note lasts one half the duration, and a quarter note
A quarter note ( AmE) or crotchet ( BrE) () is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem usually ...
(or ''crotchet'') lasts one quarter the duration.
A related symbol is the whole rest
REST (Representational State Transfer) is a software architectural style that was created to describe the design and guide the development of the architecture for the World Wide Web. REST defines a set of constraints for how the architecture of ...
(or semibreve rest), which signifies a rest for the duration of a whole note. Whole rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles generally hanging under the second line from the top of a , though they may occasionally be put under a different line (or ledger line
A ledger line or leger line is used in Western musical notation to notate pitches above or below the lines and spaces of the regular musical staff. A line slightly longer than the note head is drawn parallel to the staff, above or below, spaced ...
) in more complicated polyphonic
Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...
passages, or when two instruments or vocalists are written on one staff.
The whole note may also be used to denote a whole measure in music of free rhythm, such as Anglican chant
Anglican chant, also known as English chant, is a way to singing, sing Meter (poetry), unmetrical texts, including psalms and canticles from the Bible, by matching the natural Prosody (linguistics), speech-rhythm of the words to the notes of a s ...
, irrespective of the time of the measure.
History
The whole note symbol is first found in music notation from the late thirteenth century . It derives from the round, stemless ofmensural notation
Mensural notation is the musical notation system used for polyphony, polyphonic European vocal music from the late 13th century until the early 17th century. The term "mensural" refers to the ability of this system to describe precisely measur ...
, hence the origin of the British name.
Nomenclature
The British term is taken from Italian ''semibreve'', itself built upon Latin ''semi-'' "half" and ''brevis'' "short." The American ''whole note'' is acalque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
of the German . Some languages derive the name of the note from its round shape, such as Catalan ''rodona'', French ''ronde'', and Spanish ''redonda''. The Greek name means "whole". The Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese names mean "whole note".
See also
*List of musical symbols
Musical symbols are marks and symbols in musical notation that indicate various aspects of how a piece of music is to be performed. There are symbols to communicate information about many musical elements, including Pitch (music), pitch, Duration ...
References
* {{musical note values Note values