Whole note they may occasionally be put under a different line (or ledger line) in more complicated polyphonic passages, or when two instruments or vocalists are written on one staff and one is temporarily silent. The whole note and whole rest may also be used in music of free rhythm, such as Anglican chant, to denote a whole measure, irrespective of the time of that measure. The whole rest can be used this way in almost all or all forms of music. The symbol is first found in music notation from the late thirteenth century . The whole note derives from the
Double whole note a silence for the same duration (; ). Double whole rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles occupying the whole vertical space between the second and third lines from the top of the musical staff. They are often used in long silent passages which are not divided into separate bars to indicate a rest of two bars . This and longer rests are collectively known as multiple rests . Alla breve, the time signature , takes its name from the note value breve. In the mensural notation of the Renaissance, it was an alternative term for "proportio dupla", which meant that