Note value Note value In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the texture or shape of the "note head", the presence or absence of a "stem", and the presence or absence of "flags/beams/hooks/tails". Unmodified note values are fractional powers of two, for example one, one-half, one fourth, etc. A rest indicates a silence of an equivalent duration. The breve appears in several different versions, as shown at right. The first two are commonly used; the third is a stylistic alternative. Sometimes the longa or breve is used to indicate a very long note of indefinite
Blue note Blue note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch than standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies among performers and genres. The existence of the blue note within music derives, in part, from the fact that equal temperament in western diatonic harmony is an artifice or compromise originally employed in the eighteenth century to address problems posed in the creation of keyboard instruments. Equal temperament was an artificial 'straightening out' of a tendency for the natural harmonic series (musical