Guide to Note Value: 5 Common Note Values in Music

In music theory, a note value is the length of time that a musician sounds a particular pitch. Composers, arrangers, and musical copyists express note values in written notation on a musical staff. By reading music notation, players know the number of beats in a measure and the way those beats are subdivided among different notes.

Of course, music is meant to be heard, not read, so the most important aspect of note values is the way that they translate to performance. A steady pulse of the same note value—for instance, all quarter notes or all eighth notes—can establish a monotonous rhythm for a piece of music. A mixture of note values—for instance, two sixteenth notes followed by an eight note—can create patterns that are more musically complex.

Musical notes vary in duration, and when they’re written on sheet music, notes of different lengths are depicted in different ways. Most Western sheet music has measures separated by bar lines (vertical lines that subdivide musical staves) that divide the composition into groups of beats. The most common of these is a measure containing four beats, notated with a 4/4 time signature. The five most common note values in the 4/4 time signature are as follows.

1. A whole note is a single note that covers the entirety of a four-beat measure. It contains an open note head with no stem.

2. A half note is a single note that covers half of a four-beat measure. It contains an open note head with a stem.

3. A quarter note is a single note that covers one-quarter of a four-beat measure. It contains a closed note head with a stem.

4. An eighth note covers one-eighth of a four-beat measure. The eighth note contains a closed note head with a stem and a tail.

5. A sixteenth note covers one-sixteenth of a four-beat measure. It contains a closed note head with a stem and a double tail.

Some music has even smaller subdivisions: 32nd notes, 64th notes, and even 128th notes sometimes appear in written music. Each of these shorter notes has a duration that is one-half the length of the duration that came before it. Rather than writing increasingly short note values, though, most composers double the tempo. In a doubled tempo, 16th notes become 32nd notes, and eighth notes become 16th notes. This makes written music easier to sight-read.

When you read music, you will encounter music note values with dots next to them on a musical staff. These dotted music notes last one and a half times as long as un-dotted notes. For instance, a dotted quarter note lasts one and a half times as long as a normal quarter note. A dotted eighth note lasts half a beat longer than a regular eighth note.

Tuplets are rhythmic patterns that evenly subdivide a beat in a different way than is dictated by the time signature. The most common type of tuplet is a triplet, which contains three notes where there would normally be space for two. For example, you could divide a four-beat measure into two half-notes or one set of half-note triplets. Any type of tuplet is possible—quadruplets, quintuplets, and sextuplets all exist—but triplets are by far the most common and are the easiest for a player to sight-read off a musical score.

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