Double whole note Double whole note In music, a double whole note (American), breve (international), or double note (; ) is a note lasting two times as long as a whole note (or "semibreve"). It is the second-longest note value still in use in modern music notation (; ). In medieval mensural notation, the "brevis" was one of the shortest note lengths in use —hence its name, which is the Latin etymon of "brief". In "perfect" rhythmic mode, the brevis was a third of a "longa", or in "imperfect" mode, half a "longa" . In modern notation, a breve is commonly represented in
A (musical note) A (musical note) La or A is the sixth note of the fixed-do solfège. Its enharmonic equivalents are B ("Heses") which is a diatonic semitone above A and G (Gisis) which is a diatonic semitone below A. "A" is generally used as a standard for tuning. When the orchestra tunes, the oboe plays an "A" and the rest of the instruments tune to match that pitch. Every string instrument in the orchestra has an A string, from which each player can tune the rest of their instrument. "A" is also used in combination with a number (e.g. A-440) to label