Longa (music) Longa (music) A longa (pl. "longe" or "longae"), long, quadruple note (Am.), or quadruple whole note is a musical note that could be either twice or three times as long as a breve (Am.: double whole note, or double note), four or six times as long as a semibreve (Am.: whole note), that appears in early music. The number of breves in a long was determined by the "modus" or "mode" of a passage. Sections in perfect mode used three breves to the long while sections in imperfect mode used two breves to the long. Imperfect longs, worth two breves,
Note value Any flags always go to the right of the stem. A note value may be augmented by adding a dot after it. This dot adds the next briefer note value, making it one and a half times its original duration. A number of dots ("n") lengthen the note value by its value, so two dots add two lower note values, making a total of one and three quarters times its original duration. The rare three dots make it one and seven eighths the duration, and so on. The double dot was first used in 1752 by J.J. Quantz; in music