Musical Notes
The word note has a number of meanings, it can be:
- A tone of a definite pitch.
- A symbol for a tone, indicating pitch and duration.
- Key of a piano or other keyboard instrument.
Point three is a little miss-leading I feel as any instrument that can produce distingishable variance in tone
would be included, but hey, who am I to argue with a dictionary? *smile*. It is quite difficult to define a
note without reference to scales and the placement of notes on a stave (set of five lines in which music notes
are written). Even so, lets see what we can get from this web page.
Note Symbols to Learn
- Semi-breve (US, whole-note), 'half a breve', longest note-value normally used in modern notation.
- Minim (US, half-note), half a semibreve.
- Crotchet (US, quater-note), fourth part of a semibreve and twice the value of a quaver.
- Quaver (US, eighth-note), note which is half length of a crotchet, and eighth of a semibreve.
- Semi-Quaver (US, sixteenth note), note with half time value of a quaver, and sixteenth time value of a semibreve
- Hemidemisemiquaver (US, sixty-fourth note), quarter of a semiquaver or 1/64th of a semibreve.
- Semihemidemisemiquaver, note with half time value of a hemidemisemiquaver, and 128th time value of a semibreve.
The music extract below shows the above notes from left (semi-breve) to right (hemidemisemiquaver, 1/64th).
Although the semihemidemisemiquaver is not shown, you can easily imagine what it would look like.
David Webber 1994-96. Mozart Music Generator Program
Concise Dictionary of Music, 1986.
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