In US Fixed Income markets, a note is an instrument with a maturity of greater than one, but less than ten years.

Notes are - with the exception of their time to maturity - are identical to bonds. Notes, unlike discount instruments such as bills, pay interest at regular intervals. This is in addition to a pay of principal received at the maturity of the bond.

For example, one might purchase a US Government issued 7 year bond, paying a 5% coupon maturing in Jan 2007 for perhaps $950. Every six months the owner would then receive a coupon payment of $25, followed by a final payment of $1,000 (the so-called face value of the bond) at maturity.

See also bill and bond.

In music notation a note is represented by a circle (the "note-head") drawn on a staff, either on the staff line or nestled between two staff lines depending on its pitch. The circle is drawn either filled in or not, with an attached stem or not, and with an attached flag or not, depending on the duration of the note.

A whole note is represented by an open circle. A half note adds a stem to the circle. A quarter note fills in the circle and retains the stem. An eighth note adds a flag to the stem of a quarter note. A sixteenth note adds a second flag, and additional flags are added in turn for a thirty-second note and sixty-fourth note. They look something like this:

  /|       O       O      *      *      *      *      *    
|  |  |           |      |      |     /|     \|     \|     
 \ |  |           |      |     \|     \|     \|     \|    

When two or more eigth, sixteenth, or shorter notes occur in series, they are usually connected by beams instead of being drawn individually. The number of beams is equal to the number of flags the note would have otherwise. The following represents two eighth notes, four eighth notes, four sixteenth notes, and one eighth plus two sixteenth notes:

  /|        * *   *|  *      *|  *      *|  *            
|--|--|----|-|---| | |-|----|/|\| |----| |\| |-------------
 \ |  |    |_|   |/ \| |    |/ \|\|    |/ \|\|             

In addition, a dot may follow the note-head to indicate it lasts one and a half times the duration of the note. For instance, a half note followed by a dot lasts for three beats rather than two; a quarter note followed by a dot lasts for one and a half beats rather than one. Two dots means the note lasts one and three-quarter times the duration of the undotted note.

  /|       O.      O.     *.     *.     *.                 
|  |  |           |      |      |     /|                   
 \ |  |           |      |     \|     \|                  

Finally, it is possible to divide a note unevenly into groups of three instead of two or four or eight, using triplet and duplet notation.

For stylistic purposes, a note may also be extended for an indefinite length of time by using a fermata.

When teaching music, especially to children, the notion that a note has really doesn't have two separable aspects is often lost: its pitch and its duration.

In the world of musical theory we can, and quite often do, have pitches without duration, and durations without pitches; in the real world of heard sound, we cannot.

This quite commonly leads to the student claiming, "just let me learn the notes now, and I'll learn how long they last latter." But what happens is the student learns the pitch without the duration. And trying to teach the correct duration after is often an incomplete process.

This is one of that most difficult aspects of teaching piano, and I presume any other instrument.

Not Over There Either.

The acronym that socially responsible people append to NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard!). NOTE refers to people who believe that if you wouldn't want it in your own backyard, you shouldn't put it in anyone else's back yard either. Nature is often included in the list of anyone-else's whose backyards should not be violated, meaning NOTE is often the same thing as NOPE (Not On Planet Earth). People who want to undertake loud, smelly, dangerous, or environmentally unfriendly projects tend to look down on NOTErs.

Note (?), v. t. [AS. hnitan to strike against, imp. hnat.]

To butt; to push with the horns.

[Prov. Eng.]


© Webster 1913.

Note (?). [AS. nat; ne not + wat wot. See Not, and Wot.]

Know not; knows not.



© Webster 1913.

Note, n.





© Webster 1913.

Note, n. [AS. notu use, profit.]

Need; needful business.




© Webster 1913.

Note, n. [F. note, L. nota; akin to noscere, notum, to know. See Know.]



Whosoever appertain to the visible body of the church, they have also the notes of external profession. Hooker.

She [the Anglican church] has the note of possession, the note of freedom from party titles,the note of life -- a tough life and a vigorous. J. H. Newman.

What a note of youth, of imagination, of impulsive eagerness, there was through it all ! Mrs. Humphry Ward.





The best writers have been perplexed with notes, and obscured with illustrations. Felton.



5. pl.



A short informal letter; a billet.


A diplomatic missive or written communication.




A list of items or of charges; an account.


Here is now the smith's note for shoeing. Shak.

10. Mus. (a)





A key of the piano or organ.

The wakeful bird . . . tunes her nocturnal note. Milton.

That note of revolt against the eighteenth century, which we detect in Goethe, was struck by Winckelmann. W. Pater.


Observation; notice; heed.

Give orders to my servants that they take No note at all of our being absent hence. Shak.


Notification; information; intelligence.


The king . . . shall have note of this. Shak.


State of being under observation.


Small matters . . . continually in use and in note. Bacon.


Reputation; distinction; as, a poet of note.

There was scarce a family of note which had not poured out its blood on the field or the scaffold. Prescott.


Stigma; brand; reproach.



Note of hand, a promissory note.


© Webster 1913.

Note (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Noted; p. pr. & vb. n. Noting.] [F. noter, L. notare, fr. nota. See Note, n.]




No more of that; I have noted it well. Shak.


To record in writing; to make a memorandum of.

Every unguarded word . . . was noted down. Maccaulay.




They were both noted of incontinency. Dryden.


To denote; to designate.



To annotate.


W. H. Dixon.


To set down in musical characters.

To note a billdraft, to record on the back of it a refusal of acceptance, as the ground of a protest, which is done officially by a notary.


© Webster 1913.
