Whole note (or "breve", hence the British name "semibreve") lasts twice as long as a whole note. A related symbol is the whole rest (or semibreve rest). It usually applies for an "entire measure", but may occasionally mean a rest for the duration of a whole note, in longer time signatures such as or . (An entire measure rest is drawn centered within the measure, whereas a rest lasting for a whole note is aligned to where the note would be.) Whole rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles generally hanging under the second line from the top of a musical staff, though
Note value French for a 'little hook', and it is possible to argue that the same is true of the "minim", since the word is also used in palaeography to mean a vertical stroke in mediaeval handwriting. 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