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The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow oval—like a half note (or minim)—but with no note stem (see Figure 1). Since it is equal to four quarter notes, it occupies the entire length of a measure in 4 4 time. Other notes are multiples or fractions of the whole note.
There may be any number of beats in a measure but the most common by far are multiples of 2 or 3 (i.e., a top number of 2, 3, 4, or 6). Likewise, any note length can be used to represent a beat, but a quarter note (indicated by a bottom number of 4) or eighth note (bottom number of 8) are by far the most common.
For a note in 4/4 time, "whole" means an entire (or 'whole') measure of beats: 4 beats. In 3/4 time, though, a whole note would be written as a dotted half note tied to a quarter note. For a rest, "whole" always means an entire measure. That symbol hanging from the second line means "Do not play at all during this measure."
A longa in white-mensural notation. A longa rest (modern form) worth two breves. A longa (pl. longae, or sometimes longe), long, quadruple note (Am.), or quadruple whole note is a musical note that could be either twice or three times as long as a breve (Am.: double whole note, or double note), four or six times as long as a semibreve (Am.: whole note), that appears in early music.
Most time signatures consist of two numerals, one stacked above the other: The lower numeral indicates the note value that the signature is counting. This number is always a power of 2 (unless the time signature is irrational), usually 2, 4 or 8, but less often 16 is also used, usually in Baroque music. 2 corresponds to the half note (minim), 4 to the quarter note (crotchet), 8 to the eighth ...
Note Rest American name British name Relative value Dotted value Double dotted value Triple dotted value; large, duplex longa, or maxima [1] [2] (occasionally octuple note, [3] octuple whole note, [4] or octuple entire musical note) [5]
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Additive rhythm in 3+3+2 8 time Additive rhythm 3+3+2 8 time. 1 whole note = 8 eighth notes = 3 + 3 + 2. The term additive rhythm is also often used to refer to what are also incorrectly called asymmetric rhythms and even irregular rhythms [citation needed] – that is, meters which have a regular pattern of beats of uneven length.