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
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