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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."
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.
The most common tuplet [9] is the triplet (German Triole, French triolet, Italian terzina or tripletta, Spanish tresillo).Whereas normally two quarter notes (crotchets) are the same duration as a half note (minim), three triplet quarter notes have that same duration, so the duration of a triplet quarter note is 2 ⁄ 3 the duration of a standard quarter note.
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. For example, a double whole note (or breve) lasts twice the duration of the whole note, a half note lasts one half the duration, and a quarter note (or crotchet) lasts one quarter the duration.
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 ...
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.
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4 is used so often that it is also called "common time", and it may be indicated with rather than numbers. Other frequently used time signatures are 3 4 (three beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); 2 4 (two beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); 6 8 (six beats per bar, with each beat being an eighth note) and 12