Whole note Whole note In music, a whole note (American) or semibreve (British) is a note represented by a hollow oval note head and no note stem. Its length is equal to four beats in time, that is the whole measure (or bar). Most other notes are fractions of the whole note (e.g., half notes and quarter notes are played for one half and one quarter the duration of the whole note, respectively). The symbol is first found in music notation from the late thirteenth century, and its British name derives from the "semibrevis" of mensural notation. The whole note and whole
Whole tone scale Whole tone scale In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbours by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or "hexatonic" scales: \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { </score> \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { </score> The whole tone scale has no leading tone and because all tones are the same distance apart, "no single tone stands out, [and] the scale creates a blurred, indistinct effect". This effect is especially emphasised by the