Sixty-fourth note twenty-eighth note—otherwise known as the "semihemidemisemiquaver" —and even shorter notes, are occasionally found. Sixty-fourth note In music notation, a sixty-fourth note (American), or hemidemisemiquaver or semidemisemiquaver (British), sometimes called a half-thirty-second note , is a note played for half the duration of a thirty-second note (or demisemiquaver), hence the name. It first occurs in the late 17th century and, apart from rare occurrences of hundred twenty-eighth notes (semihemidemisemiquavers) and two hundred fifty-sixth notes (demisemihemidemisemiquavers), it is the shortest value found in musical notation . Sixty-fourth notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight note stem with
Note value renaissance music, and the terms of Latin origin had international currency at that time. Obviously, "longa" means 'long', and the rest rarely indicate relative shortness. "Breve" is from Latin "brevis", 'short', "minim" is from "minimus", 'very small', and "quaver" refers to the quavering effect of very fast notes. The elements "semi-", "demi-" and "hemi-" mean 'half' in Latin, French and Greek respectively. The chain semantic shift whereby notes which were originally perceived as short came progressively to be long notes is interesting both linguistically and musically. However, the "crotchet" is named after the shape of the note, from the Old