Part of our section on Musical Notation where we look at the elements of a music score.
This page follows on from our page on time signatures.
On our page on music stave, bars and notes we introduced the notation for musical notes with a round “note head”, possibly attached to a vertical “stem”, and some with a “flag” attached to the other end of the stem, as shown below.
This table shows the common types of notes and their note values:
| Note name | Note symbol | Number of beats (in 4 4 time signature) | Same as | Alternative name |
| crotchet |  | 1 beat | half a minim 2 tied quavers | quarter note |
| minim |  | 2 beats | 2 tied crotchets half a semi-breve | half note |
| semi-breve |  | 4 beats | 4 tied crotchets 2 tied minims | whole note |
| quaver |  | half a beat | half a crotchet 2 tied semi quavers | eighth note |
| two linked quavers |  | in the time of 1 beat | 2 quavers played as separate notes | 2 eighth notes |
| two tied quavers |  | in the time of 1 beat | a crotchet played as one note | |
| semi quaver |  | a quarter of a beat | half a quaver quarter of a crotchet | sixteenth note |
| dotted crotchet |  | one and a half beats | 3 quavers | dotted quarter note |
| dotted minim |  | 3 beats | 3 crotchets | dotted half note |
| dotted quaver |  | 3 quarters of a beat | 3 semi quavers | dotted eighth note |
| triplet crotchets |  | in the time of 2 beats | 3 short crotchets played as separate notes | |
| triplet quavers |  | in the time of 1 beat | 3 short quavers played as separate notes | |
| breve |  | 8 beats | 2 semi breves | double whole note |
Dotted notes
You may have noticed that some of notes in the table have a dot after them and are called “dotted” notes.
A dot after a note symbol tells us to add half the value of the note to it’s normal value.
For example a dotted crotchet is a crotchet (one beat in 4 4 time) with half a crotchet added, making it one and a half beats or the same length as 3 tied quavers.
Tied notes
Notice the difference between 2 linked quavers and 2 tied quavers above.
Linking quavers is just a convenient way to show more than one quaver, one after the other, rather than putting separate “flags” on each of them. But they are still separate quavers and played as separate notes.
2 tied quavers however, are played as a single note with the length of 2 quavers i.e. a crotchet.
Other notes can be tied together and they don’t have to be the same note value e.g. we can tie a quaver to a crotchet or a crotchet to a semi quaver, etc.
Why write 2 tied quavers instead of a crotchet, or a quaver tied to a crotchet instead of a dotted crotchet?
Well this is sometimes done where the note does not start on a beat, to help see where the beats are, or to join notes of different values to give a note value that cannot be shown in any other way.
But you can only join notes of the same pitch, e.g. A to A, or B to B, etc., otherwise they have to be played as separate notes.
In this example, the top bar starts with a dotted crotchet on G, which is one and a half beats; then we have a quaver on A tied to another quaver on A, then a quaver on B tied to a crotchet on B.
This is the same as the bottom bar with a dotted crotchet on G followed by a crotchet on A, then a dotted crotchet on B.
Note that although the second quaver on A in the top bar is linked to the following quaver on B, they are separate notes and could have been written as such.
You may see a “tie” between notes of different pitches, but this is probably a phrase mark to show that the notes are part of a musical phrase and should be played as such, or it might be a slur which means playing the notes in a smooth and connected manner.
Triplets
You may notice 2 of the notes we’ve included are actually groups of 3 notes with a little number 3 above them (it can be written underneath the notes instead). These are called “triplets”.
A triplet is a way of showing that we want 3 notes played in the same time as 2 standard notes.
So triplet crotchets are 3 notes played in the same time as 2 standard crotchets, and triplet quavers are 3 notes played in the same time as 2 standard quavers (or 1 crotchet).
A handy way to think of the triplet rhythm is to say “blueberry”. See our sheet music Apple Pie Blues.
Breve
We have included the “breve” at the bottom in case any clever people out there ask “hang on…if there is a semi-breve then what is a breve?”. It’s a very good question and now we’ve given you the answer! It’s 8 crotchets or 2 semi-breves.
It is rarely used these days but can be found in older (much older, probably very old in fact) music scores. Believe it not the word means “brief” because in medieval music notes could be much longer! Check out more on wikipedia.
If you didn’t wonder about that, and even if you are not really that bothered, we’ve given you the answer anyway – that’s how kind and thoughtful we are here at North Tyneside Brass in Schools!
Continue to explore this subject on our page about articulation
Return to Musical Notation