Whole note Whole note In music, a whole note (American) or semibreve (British) is a note represented by a hollow oval note head and no note stem. Its length is equal to four beats in time, that is the whole measure (or bar). Most other notes are fractions of the whole note (e.g., half notes and quarter notes are played for one half and one quarter the duration of the whole note, respectively). The symbol is first found in music notation from the late thirteenth century, and its British name derives from the "semibrevis" of mensural notation. The whole note and whole
Two hundred fifty-sixth note (1800), to notate rapid scales. Another example is in Mozart's Variations on "Je suis Lindor" (1778), where four of them are used in the slow ("molto adagio") twelfth variation. A further example occurs ("Grave.Adagio non troppo") in Jan Ladislav Dussek's (1760–1812) Fifth Piano Sonata, Op. 10 No. 2. They also occur ("Largo") in Vivaldi's (1678–1741) Concerto, RV 444, and in bar 15 of François Couperin's "Second Prelude" from "L'art de toucher le clavecin" (1716). The next note value shorter than the two hundred fifty-sixth note is the five hundred twelfth note with seven flags or beams; it is half as