Whole note of mensural notation, and this is the origin of the British name. The American name is a calque of the German . The Catalan, French and Spanish names for the note (meaning "round") derive from the fact that the was distinguished by its round stemless shape, which is true as well of the modern form (in contrast to the double whole note or shorter values with stems). The Greek name means "whole". Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese names mean "whole note". Whole note In music, a whole note (American) or semibreve (British) is a note represented by a hollow oval
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