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A quarter note (American) or crotchet (British) is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note
Whole note

In music, a whole note or semibreve is a note represented by a hollow oval note head, like a half note , and no note stem . Its length is typically equal to four beats in 4/4 time signature....
 (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head
Note head

In music, a note head is the oval part of a note. Noteheads may be coloured completely black or white, indicating the note value . In a whole note, the note head is the only component of the note....
 and a straight, flagless stem
Stem (music)

Stems can refer to two things in music, relating to music notation and production....
. The stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the stave or downwards if it is on or above the middle line. However, this may be changed if there is more than one part
Part

Part can refer to:*Part , a relation in mereology*Part , the music played or sung by an individual instrument or voice*Parts , a 1997 children's book by Tedd Arnold...
 to differentiate between the parts.






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A quarter note (American) or crotchet (British) is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note
Whole note

In music, a whole note or semibreve is a note represented by a hollow oval note head, like a half note , and no note stem . Its length is typically equal to four beats in 4/4 time signature....
 (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head
Note head

In music, a note head is the oval part of a note. Noteheads may be coloured completely black or white, indicating the note value . In a whole note, the note head is the only component of the note....
 and a straight, flagless stem
Stem (music)

Stems can refer to two things in music, relating to music notation and production....
. The stem usually points upwards if it is below the middle line of the stave or downwards if it is on or above the middle line. However, this may be changed if there is more than one part
Part

Part can refer to:*Part , a relation in mereology*Part , the music played or sung by an individual instrument or voice*Parts , a 1997 children's book by Tedd Arnold...
 to differentiate between the parts. The head of the note also reverses its orientation in relation to the stem. (See image.)

In Unicode
Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
, the symbol is U+2669 ().

Quarter Notes and Rest
A related symbol is the quarter rest
Rest (music)

A rest is an interval of silence in a piece of music, marked by a sign indicating the length of the pause. Each rest symbol corresponds with a particular note value:...
 (or crotchet rest). It denotes a silence of the same duration as a quarter note. Some describe the quarter rest as a "z joined to a c."

The note derives from the semiminima of mensural notation
Mensural notation

Mensural notation is the musical notation system which was used in European music from the later part of the 13th century until about 1600."Mensural" refers to the ability of this system to notate complex rhythms with great exactness and flexibility....
. The word crotchet comes from Old French
Old French

Old French was the Romance languages dialect continuum spoken in territories which span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from around 1000 to 1300....
 crochet
Crochet

Crochet is a process of creating fabric from yarn or thread using a crochet hook. The word is derived from the Middle French word croc or croche, meaning hook. Crocheting, similar to knitting, consists of pulling loops of yarn through other loops....
, meaning 'little hook', diminutive of croc, 'hook', because of the hook used on the note in black notation. However, because the hook appeared on the eighth note
Eighth note

An eighth note or a quaver is a Music note played for one eighth the duration of a whole note, hence the name.Eighth notes are notated with an oval, filled-in note head and a straight note stem with one flag ....
 (or quaver) in the later white notation, the modern French term croche refers to an eighth note.

The term quarter note is a calque
Calque

In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation....
 (loan translation) of the German term Viertelnote. The names of this note (and rest) in most European languages are calque
Calque

In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation....
d from the same source:

Languagenote namerest name
Dutch kwartnoot kwartrust
French noire soupir
German Viertelnote Viertelpause
Greek Tetarto (t?ta?t?) Pafsi tetartou (pa?s? tet??t??)
Italian semiminima pausa di semiminima
Polish cwiercnuta pauza cwiercnutowa
Portuguese semínima pausa de semínima
Spanish negra silencio de negra
Swedish fjärdedelsnot fjärdedelspaus


The French and Spanish names for the note (both meaning "black") derive from the fact that the semiminima was the longest note to be colored in mensural white notation, which is true as well of the modern form.

The Greek names mean "quarter" (for the note) and "quarter's pause" (for the rest). In Greek, all music rests are called "pauses."

See also

  • whole note
    Whole note

    In music, a whole note or semibreve is a note represented by a hollow oval note head, like a half note , and no note stem . Its length is typically equal to four beats in 4/4 time signature....
  • half note
    Half note

    In music, a half note or minim is a note played for half the duration of a whole note and twice the duration of a quarter note . In time signatures with a denominator of 4, such as 4/4 or 3/4 time, the half note is two beat long....
  • eighth note
    Eighth note

    An eighth note or a quaver is a Music note played for one eighth the duration of a whole note, hence the name.Eighth notes are notated with an oval, filled-in note head and a straight note stem with one flag ....
  • sixteenth note
    Sixteenth note

    In music, a sixteenth note or semiquaver is a note played for one sixteenth the duration of a whole note, hence the name. The semiquaver is half of a quaver which is an eighth note....
  • musical notation
    Musical notation

    Music notation or musical notation is any system which represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written Modern musical symbols....
  • dotted note
    Dotted note

    In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. The dot adds a half as much again to the basic note's duration....
  • tuplet
    Tuplet

    In music a tuplet is any consecutive group of notes with an individual note value more or less than half as long as the next larger note value. This is usually indicated with a horizontal bracket with a number over a tuplet indicating how many notes of the same altered value are to be performed....
  • swung eighth