Talk:Note value

Occasionally one encounters a variant in which (almost) all note heads are open. Eg, opening bars of Quatrième Acte of "Les Fastes de la grande et ancienne Ménestrandise", as printed by Edwin Kalmus (undated, but purchased new in 1994) in François Couperin clavichord pieces vol 3: Or see http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/7784/gif/bspasap6.gif The interpretation is obvious (by noting the rests): a black head is half the value of a white. Kwantus 19:07, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
 * Yes, in fact there's an example from Charpentier at the bottom of this article, under "mensural notation". &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 20:31, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah so. It's so shrunken and fuzzy I didn't see its distinguishing feature.
 * The others Actes of this Couperin piece are in "usual" schwartzkopf notation. There must've been some sort of reason for this one to be done differently...I wonder what it was. Kwantus 21:00, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
 * If you click on the Charpentier example you'll see a larger version. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:29, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
 * It would still be better to have an original that's clear [[image:weisskopf-charpentier-baerenreiter.png]] Kwantus 23:10, 2005 May 8 (UTC)
 * I agree, although your example forces a horizontal scroll. Please go ahead and replace the image on the main page with a better-quality one. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 01:38, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, the need to scroll is actually a function of window size too, but I've got smaller nice-looking rendering... Kwantus 18:04, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

The role of Note Values in Time Signatures
Attention Wahoofive! In our quest to make time signatures more accessible, I feel the following sentence needs be added to the note value article:

"Note values appear as the bottom figure in time signatures, where they indicate the beat unit of a musical work."

I am not sure whether this should appear right up at the top, just after the line about the rest. (It probably should, because it's important -)

....OR whether it should be inserted just before the History section, with a new heading: "The Role of Note Values in Time Signatures" - in which case I would preface the proposed sentence with the word "Unmodified".

Please indicate your preference ASAP and I will execute this pronto. FClef 8 September 2005 23:59 (GMT)


 * I wouldn't be in a hurry to do this. This article as it stands is about the various note symbols. While obvious there's a sort of Platonic meaning of "note value" separate from the symbols used to represent them, it won't be easy to graft this concept into this article without some more thought. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 23:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from re "grafting", and hence my unsureness of where to put such a sentence. My main reason for suggesting this is to deal with the uncertainty of people like Scott Ritchie (in "Article Difficult to Understand" in Talk:Time Signature"). He asks - if I remember rightly - what a note value is, because he has difficulty relating it to a time sig.

I will leave this for the moment and revert in due course. FClef 9 September 2005 10:39(GMT)

Source for earliest 128th note
The article claims that


 * The earliest use of the hundred-twenty-eighth note is in the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata "Pathetique" Op. 13.

A source, please? EldKatt (Talk) 16:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the claim, now. Beethoven's WoO 65 (24 variations on "Venni Amore" by Righini) contains a few isolated 128th notes, and although the earliest surviving source is from 1802, my Könemann urtext edition states that the very first edition was printed in 1791. This is before Op. 13, so there are clearly good reasons to assume the above statement is incorrect. EldKatt (Talk) 19:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This is one of those things that would be nice to add to the 128th note article if a source could be found. Note that 256th notes already appear in Vivaldi and Couperin, so one would probably have to look before that. Double sharp (talk) 07:15, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

does not work
Something is missing here. An ill-defined rest between notes must be assumed; else consecutive notes will run together.

Nowhere is this even mentioned. In the absense of notation to say otherwise, what is one to assume about this spacing? For example, might one just chop 10% off the value of a note? Is the spacing between whole notes any different from the spacing between eigth notes? Perhaps one should chop off a 1/256 note in all cases?

Then of course there is the matter of staccato and similar. Just how much time gets chopped off of the note?

Which part of the note gets chopped? The beginning, the end, or a bit of both?

24.110.145.202 21:54, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The precise duration of this rest (always at the end) varies greatly. Staccatissimo notes may well be chopped to 25% or less of their written length. (There's of course the beginner's guidelines of staccatissimo = 25%, staccato = 50%, and portato = 75%.) On the other hand, legatissimo notes on the piano may even have a "negative rest", overlapping into the next note. Legato notes indeed run together and are not meant to have an audible rest between them. In the absence of notation, nonlegato should probably be assumed, implying a cut-off of something like 90% (obviously separate, but not detached). Double sharp (talk) 07:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Your criticism is very much that of the late 18th century, BTW, when the non ligato touch was the standard default. Today, for better or worse, the legato touch is the standard default and indeed adjacent notes run into each other and overlap slightly. My impression is that the seperation is only just long enough to be noticed, so that at fast speeds non ligato merges with staccato perceptually. Double sharp (talk) 12:19, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Duration of notes
The article says that "A note value does not stand for any absolute duration, but can only be understood in relation to other note values." So, if it's not absolute duration that determines whether a given note is, say, a crotchet or a quaver, then what is it? Is it that what are perceived to be the "main beats" of the music are always crotchets, whatever their duration? Or is it a combination of this and a sort of ball-park convention about how long crotchets should be? For example, if the main beats of a piece were two seconds apart then would a crotchet be two seconds? Or would that be thought to be "too long", so that the main beats actually became minims? This question is tied up with the notion of time signatures, but that article doesn't seem to explain it either. For example, what would cause me to write a piece in 4/2 rather than 4/4? If not the absolute duration of notes then what? If anyone could explain these issues (in the article(s)) then that would be great. 86.150.100.14 (talk) 20:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The assignment of value to duration is pretty arbitrary. In the Middle Ages they started with two note values, which they called "long" (longa) and "short" (breve). Through a process you might call "note value inflation", the breve gradually through the centuries came to become a very long note (twice the length of a whole note). Even from the same composer there can be variations of some 1000% (that's a thousand) in the length of a particular note value -- a Mozart slow movement might have slowly-pulsing eighth notes after the first movement had had lickety-split quarters. The reason no rule is cited in the article is that there is no rule. It's like "loud" and "soft". A birdsong might seem deafening if it's waking you up in the morning, but right after you get off a plane the same birdsong might seem almost inaudible. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 00:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Note pictures
The SVG versions of the note value pictures have several typographical mistakes. I reverted to the original high quality GIF pictures (See revision 137583316) pending improvements to the SVG images.--Dbolton (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Beats and notes
Is a note value ever defined in terms of how many beats it gets? As a music teacher and music software author, I have defined a quarter note as getting one beat, in the context of the typical time signature of 4/4. The 'numerator' says there are 4 beats to the measure, and the 'denominator' says a quarter note ("4" meaning "1/4" or one fourth) gets one beat.

If so, I'd like to add at the top of the article the idea that a "whole note" gets 4 beats, a "half note" gets 2 beats, and a "quarter note" gets 1 beat. Is this okay?

If it's okay, do I need to provide any sources, or is this common knowledge? If it's not okay, why not? --Uncle Ed (talk) 13:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The trouble with this is it's not always true. In 6/8 time a quarter note is only two-thirds of a beat. --Dbolton (talk) 18:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source for that? I've been teaching my students that in 6/8 time there are 6 beats, and that a 1/8 note gets one beat. --Uncle Ed (talk) 23:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If you count 6/8 time in six beats per measure then each quarter note gets two beats. 6/8 time can also be counted as two beats per measure for convenience. Here's a source: Reviewing 6/8 time. --Dbolton (talk) 17:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The other thing I was getting to, with this, is the idea that "whole" refers to an entire measure in common time. Thus there is a correlation between a "whole note" (or whole rest) and the concept of filling up or using all of the space between the bar lines.

This idea has been deemphasized in Wikipedia, but I don't know why. It seems so obvious that a "half note" is half the measure (in 4/4 time, anyway) and that a "quarter note" or "quarter rest" is 1/4 of the measure.

That way, in 75% (or more?) of songs being taught to a beginner, the teacher can say that a whole note takes up the whole measure; or 2 half notes, or 4 quarter notes. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Typical and special
In the typical situation, a whole note is 4 beats, half note is 2, quarter note is 1. Further, there are 2 eighth notes per beat, 4 sixteenth notes per beat, and so on. What are the special situations?

In 6:8 time, we can say that each group of 3 eighth notes gets one beat. Should this be mentioned in the articles?

I've been "corrected" or told to "defend" certain edits by contributors hinting that a whole note or a half note can have something other than the typical 4 beats and 2 beats, respectively. Let's make a chart or table showing the typical values, along with any special values. --Uncle Ed (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you referring to a particular passage in this article? --dbolton (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This article doesn't really have anything to do with beats. Anyway, by "typical" you mean "in my personal experience" or "what Mrs. Grundy taught us in third grade" which isn't a reliable source for an objective article. Lots and lots of music has other beat values. In orchestral music my experience is that the half note to the beat is the norm, even in nominal 4/4 time.


 * Or maybe you're referring to Compound meter. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 05:23, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * ??? If I'm hearing you right, you are saying that note value and meter are unrelated. I have written a computer program that analyzes MIDI output of an electronic piano and determines the length of each note, and also the tempo of the piece, based on the assumption (which you now tell me is wrong) that a quarter note is one beat, a half note is 2, and a whole note is 4. What gives?


 * Are you talking about some sort of theoretical ideal, or a universal definition that transcends actual playing of music by human beings? In what context is note value unrelated to beats? When and where is a half note, e.g., not 2 beats? (In 4/4 time it's two beats. In "cut time", we can give each half note 1 beat, and whole notes 2 beats ... is that what you're talking about? If so, please be clear - not elusive.)


 * We're trying to collaborate on writing an article for beginners - not for Juilliard students. If there are advanced meanings or contexts that ordinary readers may be unaware of, can we find a way to make these clear without misleading anyone else? --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm a little behind on responding to this, but note values can be explained entirely independently of beats. In theory, any note value can get the beat. In compound meter, dotted note values typically get the beat. In most orchestral music, the half note gets the beat. In a lot of music written before 1650, the whole note gets the beat. It's easy to find examples from Mozart, Beethoven, and other 18th-century composers in which the eighth or sixteenth note gets the beat. It's true that quarter-note-gets-the-beat is how it's typically presented to beginners, but we can't really limit an encyclopedia article to a 3rd-grader level of understanding, any more than the article on Gravity limits itself to saying "Gravity is what makes things fall down."

Note sizes
It's inconsistent that the thirty-second and sixty-fourth note sizes in this table are bigger than the others. Please fix this if possible. Georgia guy (talk) 17:07, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Some errors?
While I can't claim to be an expert of old kinds of musical notation it is my impression that some errors may have occured, for example regarding the dotted, double dotted and triple dotted values. In Philippe de Vitry's "Ars nova" as mentioned in the article there are not only black notes but white notes as well. A "Maxima" can have a ratio of 3 : 1 or of 2 : 1 in comparison with a "Longa". This ratio is called "tempus". The same goes for the ratio of a "Longa" in comparison with a "Brevis". In this case the ratio is called "prolatio". A ratio of 3 : 1 is called "perfect" and a ratio of 2 : 1 "imperfect". So there are 4 cases: "tempus perfectum" with "prolatio perfectum", "tempus perfectum" with "prolatio imperfectum", "tempus imperfectum" with "prolatio perfectum" and "tempus imperfectum" with "prolatio imperfectum". For the purpose of indicating these 4 cases there are 4 different mensural symbols. Of these symbols mainly the symbol for "tempus imperfectum" with "prolatio imperfectum" has survived in our times, with usual meaning as indicating a meter of 4/4 time. In some cases the "perfect" values were executed as "imperfect" and the rules after which it was done were very complicated. However, a dot was not used for enlarging a value. In fact, there were dots in this old notation but their meaning was totally different.

Double dotted values, as far as I know, came into regular use not earlier than in the second half of the 18th century. While I am not quite sure whether Mozart already used them I can't remember a single example for it and I am quite sure that Joh. Seb Bach did not use them. Besides, the duration of a note with single dot was heavily depending on the tempo, the style and the character of a piece. For example a note with single dot in an Adagio was usually executed as if it was a double dotted note. This is not to say the duration could be derived from a mathematical formula as given in the article. This applies even to notes with single dot. In other words, a dot usually augments a value while the measure of this augmentation is a question of interpretation and style.

What about the difference between British and American names, by the way? An expression like "semihemidemisemiquaver" is hardly speakable. So it would be my guess that British musicians will have adopted the American expressions instead. 79.250.48.48 (talk) 10:45, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You're right about double dotted notes; according to Harvard Dictionary, "J.J. Quantz...(1752) seems to have been the first to use the double dot", and discusses at length how the dotted value in the Baroque could be more or less than the modern interpretation, depending on context. Even 19th-century composers often used dotted rhythms to mean triplets. The history part of the article could be expanded somewhat, although I'd suggest that details of mensural notation probably belong elsewhere. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 16:49, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * 79.250 is definitely right that there are major problems with the descriptions of the notes longer than breve as well. I've made substantial changes to the Maxima (music) article and I'd like to remove references to octuple/quadruple whole notes as well, which seems like original research. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 06:22, 19 July 2014 (UTC)


 * "While I am not quite sure whether Mozart already used them": oh yes, he did. See the opening of the Haffner Symphony, KV 385. (He writes a minim tied to a double-dotted crotchet; now he could have just written a triple-dotted minim, but didn't. Make of that what you will.) Double sharp (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Quadruple, Octuple.
People who keep adding back quadruple or octuple as American names for the longa and maxima: where's a citation? I've never seen such a term, and it's not given as an alternative term in any music history/notation history text I know of. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 17:45, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The Grove entry for note values, btw. gives no American terms for longa or maxima, which makes sense since they disappeared from use before America came into separate existence. My suggestion is to use colspan=2 to merge the two fields and mark the commonly used Latin terms as "longa (Latin)" -- they are much more commonly used than the "proper" English terms (double long, large, etc.) Best, -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that there is a question of what is meant by "English usage" here. Common, everyday use among performing musicians may be quite a different thing from usage by historical musicologists, for instance. Further, not only is there the question of nationality, but also of time. Many American sources from the late-19th and early 20th centuries (some of them still in use, many others now quaint antiques) treat as familiar terms the words "large" and "long" for the maxima and longa, for example, even while qualifying these note values as having fallen out of use in modern music. There is also a noticeable shift over the past hundred to a hundred-and-fifty years from relative uniformity between UK and US usage toward more differentiation. The term "breve", for example, is clearly regarded by Baker as the standard American term in 1897, with "double note" as second choice; the redundant term "double whole note" appears to be a somewhat later American coinage. As long as we are on the subject, at the other end of the scale I find a considerable number of sources that would dispute H. L. Mencken's contention in 1921 that, if a British musician were to use such an outlandishly small note as the one Americans would call a 1/128 note, he would not know what to name it. Of course he would. It is either a semihemidemisemiquaver, or a quasihemidemisemiquaver. Now, whether this is a commonly used term depends a lot on whether we mean, "whenever the note actually occurs", or "considering that the subject scarcely ever arises". The same could be said for the large and the longa.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)