Half Note

Half notes are notated with a hollow oval Note Head (like a whole note) and a straight Note Stem with no Flag s (like a Quarter Note ; see Figure 1). The half rest (or '''minim rest''') denotes a silence for the same duration. Half rests are drawn as filled-in rectangles sitting on top of the middle line of the Musical Staff . As with all notes with stems, half notes are drawn with stems to the right of the notehead, facing up, when they are below the middle line of the Staff . When they are on or above the middle line, they are drawn with stems on the left of the note head, facing down.

The word ''minim'' comes from the Latin ''minimus'' meaning 'least, smallest', because in medieval Mensural Notation , the minim was at one stage the smallest of all note values used. The American term ''half note'' is a 19th-century Loan Translation of German ''halbe Note''.

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Half Note