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
Two hundred fifty-sixth note long as the two hundred fifty-sixth note. After this would come the one thousand twenty-fourth note (eight flags or beams), the two thousand forty-eighth note (nine flags or beams), the four thousand ninety-sixth note (ten flags or beams), and so on indefinitely, with each note half the length of its predecessor. The shortest note value to have ever been used in a published work is the 1024th note (notated incorrectly as a 2048th) in Anthony Philip Heinrich's "Toccata Grande Cromatica" from "The Sylviad", Set 2, written around 1825; 256th notes occur frequently in this piece, and some 512th notes also