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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.
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 ...
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.
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
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.
The beat is always called ta. In simple meters, the division and subdivision are always ta-di and ta-ka-di-mi. Any note value can be the beat, depending on the time signature. In compound meters (wherein the beat is generally notated with dotted notes), the division and subdivision are always ta-ki-da and ta-va-ki-di-da-ma.