Working out a noteʼs length
In sheet music you need to ask yourself 3 questions about a noteʼs appearance in order to
work out its length....
- Is the notehead filled in?
- Does the note have a stem?
- Does the stem have a tail?
These 3 variables combine to tell you how long a note should be held for. Itʼs much easier
to show you this rather than try to explain it. Have a look at this table....
NOTE NAME NOTE SYMBOL
Whole Note (Semibreve)Half Note (Minim)Quarter Note (Crotchet)Eighth Note (Quaver)Sixteenth Note (Semiquaver)Thirty second Note (Demis-
emiquaver)You can see that the quarter note (crotchet) has a filled notehead, a stem, but no tail. If
you un-fill the notehead and remove the stem the note length gets longer. If you add more
tails to the stem, the note gets progressively shorter.