A quarter note, the first one appearing in the image below,
could probably be called the most basic note duration.
In time signatures 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, etc., the 4 on bottom
means that a quarter note lasts for one single beat.
To double the duration, remove the "filling" in the notehead.
To double it again and make it four beats, remove the stem.
Adding a flag to a quarter note cuts the duration in half.
Therefore, the basic note with two flags is a fourth of a beat.
Now, the question is, if you hollow out the one-beat note,
and then add four flags, what is the duration of the result?
The answer is, "A lot of what glitters is not real."
It's just for decoration. Kinda glamourous, ya know?
On opposite sides of the Pond, we use different names
for the durations. Here is a side-by-side comparison.
United States | United Kingdom |
---|---|
double whole note | breve |
whole note | semibreve |
half note | minim |
quarter note | crochet |
eighth note | quaver |
sixteenth note | semiquaver |
thirty-second note | demisemiquaver |
sixty-fourth note | hemidemisemiquaver |
et | cetera |