 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Meredith H
Date: 2000-03-13 00:04
This is just a question to satisfy my curiosity. In the US you refer to note values as whole notes, half notes, quarter notes etc. In Australia we have probably taken our system from the British sysytem calling these same note values semibreves, minim and crotchets. What I am interested in is what we refer to as a breve which would be twice as long as your whole note. Do you have a name for this particular note value? I teach a beginners group for my community band and I have a set of flash cards with note values in the American system. I have been trying to teach my kids both systems. However, we came across a breve in a piece we were playing in band and I was unable to tell them the alternative name for this note. Any ideas?
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Author: Katherine Pincock
Date: 2000-03-13 00:16
As far as I know, there's no North American term for a breve; this is probably because its use is almost unknown here, since it had probably fallen out of use by the time European music styles were brought across the Atlantic. However, if anyone knows what it would be called, I'd be really interested to know!
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2000-03-13 01:13
<b>Breve, brevis</B> [L.]; An old note value that, as implied by the name [L. <i>brevis</i>, short], originally (early 13th century) was the shortest value then in use; see Notation III. Because of the subsequent introduction of six or more degrees of smaller value (<i>semibrevis, minima</I>, etc.; see Notation IV; also Mensural notation I), it became, in the late 16th century, the longest value. Today it is occasionally used as the equivalent of two whole notes, written |=| or |O|. See also <i>Alla breve</i>.
<B><I>Harvard Dictonary of Music</I></B>, 2nd Edition
<hr>
The local library was selling books $2/shopping bag last week, so I bagged this and a few of other reference tomes.
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Author: Meredith H
Date: 2000-03-13 03:04
I like the quote, Mark. Its hard to believe a breve was ever described as short but I can see where the rest of our notation comes from, semibrevis and minima. How did the American system develop? Do the Canadians also use your system? I think the music we played with breves in it may have been arrangements of medieval music or chants but I can't quite remember.
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Author: Jerry K.
Date: 2000-03-13 04:03
The Norton/Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music states that the American version of the breve is called the "double whole note" or "double note." In the British system, the breve is half the value of the "long" and there is a still longer note called the "large." This book gives note nomenclature in seven languages. Frankly, I've never understood how the British could play notes called demisemiquavers and hemidemisemiquavers!
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Author: Eoin
Date: 2000-03-13 07:10
Most of us on this (Eastern) side of the Atlantic have great difficulty playing hemidemisemiquavers :-)
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Author: Meredith H
Date: 2000-03-13 20:49
What makes a hemidemisemiquaver worse than a sixtyfourth note? The thought of trying to play or count sixty four of anything makes my mind boggle.
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Author: Ginger Martin
Date: 2000-03-13 22:08
At least a 64th note sounds businesslike...a hemidemisemiquaver just sounds hilarious!
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