Talk:Rest (music)

Deleted paragraphs
All good advice, I suppose, but only comprehensible for someone who knows it already. These are more or less the same rules as apply to notes, and it seems more of a how-to than encyclopedic. &mdash;Wahoofive | Talk 03:25, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * When the time signature is four beats per bar, and the bar is not empty, rests should not include (parts of) both the 2nd and 3rd beats. For example, if a bar in 4/4 (four crochets per bar) had a crochet note on 1st and 4th beats, it would not be written crochet note, mimim rest, crochet note. Instead, it is written crochet note, crochet rest, crochet rest, crochet note
 * When a bar is compound time (some number of dotted notes per bar - eg 6/8, two dotted crochets per bar), the rests should not 'go over' between one compound (dotted note) beat and the next. For example, a bar in 6/8 containing a crochet note at the start and a quaver note at the end would be written crochet note, quaver rest, crochet rest, quaver note
 * Similarly, with irregular time signatures, rests should not span more than one major beat. For example, a 5/8 bar (five quavers per bar) has a 3+2 pattern, starting with a crochet note and ending with a quaver note is not written crochet note, crochet rest, quaver note, but crochet note, quaver rest, quaver rest, quaver note
 * In compound time (three minor beats per major (=compound) beat), or for bars with three beats per bar, rests should not span the 2nd and 3rd (minor) beat. Thus in 3/4 (three crochets per bar), a bar with one crochet at the start is not written crochet note, minim rest but crochet note, crochet rest, crochet rest.

8/4 time
I see the sentence:

The only exceptions are for a 4/2 time signature (four minims per bar), when a breve rest is typically used for a bar's rest but how about 8/4?? Both time signatures can be filled with a breve note for one measure. Georgia guy (talk) 21:56, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That sentence is referenced to Gardner Read's book, and is followed by an unsourced claim that "now" (presumably since 1979, when the Read book was published) things are often different. Presumably, Read does not specifically mention 8/4 time (or 16/8 or 32/16, etc.), but what is really needed is a source for the claim that contradicts (or, more kindly, "updates") Read.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Alternative crotchet rest
User:P0mbal has kindly supplied an image of the crotchet-rest form commonly found in French printed scores, with the explanation that it is an "older" form. I have tagged this as needing a source, though I believe the claim to be at least partly true. This symbol, which has the appearance of a "backward" quaver rest, is certainly found commonly in 18th-century engraved scores, but there is a third variant, as well, which resembles a backward Z, or a two superimposed quaver rests, one backward and the other upside down, with a common diagonal stroke. This form, which is more common in manuscripts than in printed scores, is ultimately the source of the common modern form. At the moment, I am at a loss for a source for all of this and, because "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth'''", I must refrain from trying to straighten this out in the article until I find such a source. In the meantime, if someone else can settle this, please feel free to do so.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I have supplied an example publication (an old Novello's Mozart Requiem) as source, and have certainly come across the third kind of rest you mention and understand its transformation into the modern form. As an example of use I could scan in a image from some dusty 18th century Chandos Anthems by Handel - it shows old form crotchet rests next to quaver rests for comparison.P0mbal (talk) 22:43, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, good, thank you for that. The issue is actually rather technical, since the current "normal" form is really more a matter of typographical design than of music notation. Speaking as an antediluvian myself, who grew up writing music with a pen on paper, and reading manuscript as well as printed scores, I think I can safely say that this "normal" form has never been found in informal manuscripts, and even in careful autography tends to take on a rather different appearance, conditioned by pen nibs and the flow of ink. But the important issue, I think, is that the French—being French—long insisted on having their own designs (the French bass clef, for example, which is quite astonishingly dyslexic when compared to the form found almost universally elsewhere, even if it is undeniably more elegant). If this form of crotchet rest ("soupir") is still in common use by French publishers, then the form is "earlier" only insofar as the "normal" design was developed more recently—not that the latter has succeeded the former in usage (though I must confess that my limited experience and the French Wikipedia article parallel to this one suggest it has fallen out of fashion even in France).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * This "third variant" is the one found here (http://archive.org/stream/secondthoughtsa01jerogoog#page/n343/mode/1up, at the very beginning), right? It is French music, OK, but it's an English book (not about music). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.9.228.141 (talk) 07:24, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I know I'm resurrecting an old discussion, but I have removed the "early" from the 20thC. The manual I cite was being used certainly until 1975 as the standard theory manual for grades I-VIII in the UK. The 1958 issue was on sale until at least then. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I had a word with my boys this morning: the alternative is still being taught (grade V theory), but now as a historic rather than current form - but then they admitted that they never used manuscript paper, all composition is done with Sibelius on the computer. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:22, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Bars or measures?
We really need to stick to one usage. It is not at all good to keep mixing the American usage with the British usage at random points in the article. Does anyone have a good argument for which one should be used? — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 11:37, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * More than "bars" vs "measures", the article also liberally mixes "crotchets", "quavers", etc., with "quarter notes", "eighth notes", etc. FWIW, both "bar" and "measure" are good American usage but, as I understand it, "measure" is not good British usage. Nevertheless, even in American English it is not stylistically acceptable to mix both terms. Following Wikipedia guidelines, the solution here should be based on the history of the article. If it used British terminology first, and the Americanisms were added later, then the Americanisms should be cleaned out in favour of UK usage (though American alternatives may be added in round brackets); if American usage was first in place, and Briticisms were added later, then the Briticisms should be changed in favor of American usage (in which case parentheses should be used instead of round brackets for the British alternative terms ;-).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:46, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * After a brief look at the Edit History of this article, it is clear that American terminology (with parenthesized British equivalents) was used at the modest outset, and that British usage was very quickly added on top of it, especially with respect to using the word "bar" instead of "measure". That said, look what happens when you link to "Measure (music)". There is another Wikipedia guideline that I did not previously mention, and that is the very sensible position that, wherever possible, region-neutral terminology should be adopted. This is not possible for "sixteenth" vs. "semiquaver", but because "bar" is recognized American as well as British usage (even if "measure" is favored in formal American writing) and because this is the term used in the corresponding Wikipedia article on the subject, it seems persuasive to use "bar" consistently, as well as to give British terms such as "crotchet", "hemidemisemiquaver", etc. only in parentheses following their American counterparts. Any other opinions?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm British, so I can confirm that yes, "measure" is not acceptable British usage. Your proposal sounds reasonable, but I also think it depends what sounds natural in American usage. I wouldn't object to using "measure" with "bar" in parentheses. Probably more important is to check whether there is already a consensus on other music-related articles on Wikipedia. If there is a consensus, it would make sense to go with that; if not, then I'm willing to go with your decision. I'll be happy as long as things are consistent. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 01:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I found an interesting way of dealing with the bar/measure problem at Beat (music): the first mention is of "measure" and the second is of "bar", and they both have wikilinks to the bar (music) article. This neatly clears up confusion about the concept if anyone starts reading halfway through. Actually, I won't mind nearly as much if we mix usage but the concept is still clear. It's still too early to say whether this is a consensus position across music articles, however. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 01:46, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that "consensus across music articles" is a phantom concept. On the one hand, you could say that the fact of the article Bar (music) itself constitutes a consensus that this word and not "measure" is the preferred term. On the other hand, compiling statistics on dozens or even hundreds of articles does nothing but establish a statistical predominance. This is not the same thing as "consensus" at all.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * You have a point. I wasn't sure what form of consensus there might be when I wrote that. After some digging, however, I found something on this topic at Manual of Style (music). It basically says to be consistent in the variety of English and to include the equivalent language term in brackets (or parentheses, I assume). Also, it suggests making the bracketed term a wikilink, which would neatly cover the points made above. I also had a quick look at the Music and Classical Music WikiProjects, but I couldn't find any advice on this question. So, we should probably stick to the original version - like you said, American terminology with parenthesized British equivalents. So it would be "measure (bar)" in the first instance, and then just "measure" after that. I'll go ahead and change it if you think that's reasonable. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 09:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No-one (No one) else has chimed in so far, so you (we) may as well go ahead. However, I thought the gist of our discussion was that "bar" is comparatively region-neutral and should be preferred for that reason to "measure", so I would do that particular term the other way round.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've changed it (using "bar" instead of "measure"). I've also reformatted the list of rest lengths at the top as a table. I'd be grateful if you could have a look through the article to see if I missed anything. — GypsyJiver  ( drop me a line ) 02:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Great! I shall scrutinize/scrutinise you work!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Where/Why is a Rest Used?
I would speculate that a rest functions to clarify the start times of non-contiguous notes within a bar. You can say it in human terms like so "A rest clarifies not only the stop time of a note but also the start time of the next note, which would be ambiguous without the rest." So it seems the itch that motivated the invention may be legitimately included in its encyclopedic definition, as much as trivia questions like "who/when/where was it first used?". Might help keep the wheels of inquiry turning? Rtdrury (talk) 21:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

That and so much more. A rest also serves to separate phrases. More broadly, a rest is the yin to the yang of sound or notes. A rest provides contrast to sound (silence being the opposite of sound) and thereby enhances and enriches music. A rest allows the ear, the mind and the body to relax within a piece of music. There should be section in the article on the purpose of a rest. 24.188.178.8 (talk) 17:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)Kolef8824.188.178.8 (talk) 17:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Rests are used to show a measure's duration. A measure with 3 quarter notes is in 3/4 time. A measure with 3 quarter notes and a quarter rest is in 4/4 time. How can we distinguish these if we don't have rests?? Georgia guy (talk) 22:18, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

3/2 time problem
What if you wanted a 2-beat rest in 3/2 time?? A whole note is 2 beats long, but a whole rest fills a measure regardless of the time signature. Georgia guy (talk) 01:40, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. So? Is it so hard to tell whether there is anything else in the bar besides the rest? Not only that, but it is usual to write two successive half rests under these circumstances, rather than one whole rest, I think. I'll have to look up the rules in Gardner Read or some similar text, though, to see if this is actually prescribed.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:25, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is the passage from Read (first edition, 1964, page 95): "as the whole rest is now used almost solely to represent an entire measure of rest, it must not ordinarily be employed for less than a measure. An exception to this rule could possibly occur in a 4/2 or 8/4 meter. … Conceivably, too, a whole rest could be used to express part of a measure in 3/1 or 2/1 meter, the 1 standing for the whole note as the beat, though such meters are quite rare". [Example 7.5 intervenes.] "With the above exceptions, a whole rest must not be used to indicate a fractional portion of a measure. This is particularly true in triple meters: 3/2 or 6/4. If two beats of a 3/2 measure are to be silent, we must write two half-rests, rather than a whole rest. In compound triple [sic, recte: compound duple] meter (6/4) we notate the rests equivalent to four quarter-notes as a dotted half-rest and a quarter rest, to indicate the natural division of the measure after the third quarter-note value". I believe this answers the question.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Dotted rests
The little section on this is unsourced, but agrees with my recollection of learning music (England, 1960s) in which rests were never dotted. A quick check in my ABRSM Beethoven edited Craxton/Tovey supports the specific note that in 6/8 an empty beat is represented by crotchet+quaver rests. However, Gardner Read, a reliable US source says (p.102) "...rests may be dotted exactly as notes are dotted to increase their [...] length". Does anyone have any info, and possibly sources, to explain this further? Is their really a US/British divide, or possibly a German/French divide? Imaginatorium (talk) 10:04, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * There could also be a temporal issue here. My "learning music" period was just the same as your, only in America, and we were taught the same rule (the first edition of Gardner Read's book had not yet been published, or had only just appeared). However, we had no difficulty at that time finding examples of dotted rests in printed music, and came to the conclusion that this rule was out of date. It remains an interesting question, and I will see what I can discover. Thanks for raising the issue.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:02, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't remember reliably exactly what we were taught -- it might just be that in manuscript it was thought better to avoid dotted rests. After all, we were definitely taught to write the crotchet rest the old/French? way, as a reversed quaver; I first saw people trying to handwrite the standard printed squiggly thing when I came to Japan. Anyway, I searched a bit more, and soon found dotted rests in Beethoven sonatas III (pub. ABRSM, England, about 1930), and also in the Dover reprint (I think) of the original French edition of the Faure nocturnes and barcarolles. But in both cases the 6/8 two-rest rule is also followed. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * While some how-to books might advise against dotted rests on one ground or another, or in some contexts, that seems like a far less important matter. It's indisputable that rests can be dotted and there's no doubt what the dots mean. There are some contexts in which you'd avoid dotted notes, too, but it seems like a huge distraction to bring it up. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:29, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * P.S. easily found examples in the Bach-Gesellschaft. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. also in Bach's manuscripts. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:37, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, but you will find all sorts of things in Bach's manuscripts that violate our (modern) rules of notation! (His counterpoint often goes badly wrong, too. I'm sure Ebenezer Prout must have been horrified every time Bach turned in an exercise!)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:03, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * You're right about that. Bach frequently put the stems on what we consider the wrong sides of the notes, for example. The Bach-Gesellschaft example is stronger, since that was considered state of the art academically at the time. But it's easy to find examples. Is there anyone who denies that the notation appears frequently in published music, whether academics approve of it or not? &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * As User:Imaginatorium suggests, manuscript practice may differ from printed norms but, more importantly, many changes in notational usage have occurred since the mid-eighteenth century. For that matter, some changes have also occurred since the second half of the nineteenth century, which is when the Bach-Gesellschaft edition was made. Finding a reliable source to support the claim you have formulated (that is, a source that denies that the notation appears frequently in published music) might prove a little tricky. I would suggest instead that a source be found that says this notation does occur. Oh, look, we have one already: Gardner Read. If other up-to-date sources say it ought not to be used, we can cite that as well, and point out that the authorities do not all agree on the correctness of this practice. We should beware of setting up such conflicts between sources published more than a hundred years apart, however, unless we are prepared to find still other sources that discuss changing practices over time.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:57, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone would deny it. I'm replying with a bit of speculation: perhaps music teachers trying to help students succeed in examinations have advised against writing dotted rests, on the logic that dotted rests are never mandatory and are sometimes wrong. Perhaps "Be safe, don't bother with dotted rests" gets misinterpreted as "dotted rests bad". TooManyFingers (talk) 21:41, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

What is the name of the repeated graphical element in progressively smaller rest symbols?
An 8th rest / quaver rest is drawn using a single black circle connected by a small curve to the stem. A 16th rest / semiquaver rest is visually depicted as two of these circles and curves stacked on top of each other (slightly angled). A 32nd rest / demisemiquaver rest has this pattern repeated 3 times, and so on... but what is this graphical element called?

In notes, this is the same pattern used with flags (for independently drawn notes) and beams (for joined notes) to indicate smaller and smaller lengths. Is "flag" also the appropriate term for this element of a rest, or is there a different term since it is shaped differently? 76.167.106.227 (talk) 07:48, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Mapeh
How many beats are there in whole note or whole rest 112.202.182.174 (talk) 13:19, 25 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The simple answers:
 * Whole note: usually 4 beats.
 * Whole rest: usually a full bar. Not always the same as a whole note.
 * Slightly better answers:
 * Whole note: the number of beats it gets is equal to the number on the bottom of the time signature, except in compound time.
 * In compound time, a DOTTED whole note gets beats equal to HALF of that bottom number. (When whole notes or dotted whole notes show up in compound time, they're usually easy to understand anyway, so don't think too hard about this.)
 * Whole rest: usually a full bar, but watch out for the exceptions. For a bar that is shorter than a quarter note, or a bar that is double the length of a whole note (or more), the rules may change. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:30, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Multimeasure rest = bars, not whole rests
I changed "number of whole rests" to "number of bars", for accuracy in unusual cases such as those very short metres in which a whole rest is never used. TooManyFingers (talk) 21:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Mapeh
What are the kinds of rest and ther time value 115.147.39.15 (talk) 09:27, 6 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Way more work to write this question than to read the article. That's not what this chat page is for. &mdash;Wahoofive (talk) 02:40, 7 September 2023 (UTC)