How does the whole note relate to the half note and quarter note?Īt this point and in view of the exercises I’m going to propose you at the end of this blog post, it is important to understand the relationship between the whole note, the half note and the quarter note. In fact, the whole rest hangs from the fourth line whereas the half rest sits on the third line: Make sure you don’t confuse it with the half note rest, which has the same shape and color but differs for its location on the staff. Therefore, when you encounter this symbol you have to stop playing and pause for four claps.Īccording to the rules of music theory, a whole rest must be hanging from the fourth line of the staff and its interior has to be entirely coloured in black. It is a musical pause whose duration is equivalent to the length of a whole note. What’s its symbol and how many beats does it encompass?Ī whole rest, also known as a semibreve rest, is a rectangular shaped symbol used in musical notation to indicate 4 beats of silence: This means that if you have a time signature of 4/4, you can have only 1 whole note per bar. The length of a whole note equals four beats, that is, you have to count four claps to get a sense of its musical value. In other words, we have to determine what we call the value or duration of a whole note. Moving to the rhythmic side of the topic, I think that one of the first things you want me to cover is the number of beats, counts or claps contained in a whole note.
The half-note is notated as a hollow oval endowed with a stem, whereas the whole note is stemless. However, you can easily grasp how these two notes differ from each other by taking a look at this other picture: The symbol associated with a whole note is a stemless and hollow oval, represented in the picture below:Īs the image clearly shows, the shape of a whole note can be misleading in that he’s almost identical to the form of the half-note. Speaking of musical notation, what kind of symbol is commonly used to indicate the whole note? With regard to the whole note, this American expression is the literal translation of the German word ‘ ganze’, which means entire and refers to the fact that a whole note is the longest musical value of the Western music and, as a result, the founding note from which all the other rhythmic subdivisions originate. The word ‘semibreve’, literally ‘half’ (semi) and ‘short’ (breve), derives from the ancient ‘ semibrevis’, an equally hollow and stemless note used within the mensural notation system. ‘ Whole note’ is the American name, whereas ‘semibreve’ is the British name. There are two ways to call a note value lasting for four beats: whole note and semibreve. Nomenclature of a whole note: American name vs British Name It is the longest musical figure contemplated by the western musical theory and one of the easiest notes to play in terms of rhythm. One of the possible definitions of whole note is this:Ī note value depicted as a hollow oval with no stem that covers a number of beats equal to four. If you want a clear and detailed answer to the most important questions revolving around the whole note, also known as semibreve, this guide is for you. How does a whole note differ from the half note and quarter note? What are the symbols used for the whole note and whole rest? All you need to know about the whole note in music
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