whole note
A note lasting four beats in common time, represented by an open note head without a stem.
In Depth
The whole note (called a semibreve in British terminology) is the longest standard note value in common use. In 4/4 time, it fills an entire bar — four quarter-note beats. Its notation is distinctive: an open (hollow) oval without any stem, making it the simplest-looking note on the page.
The whole note sits at the top of the note-value hierarchy: a whole note equals two half notes, four quarter notes, eight eighth notes, or sixteen sixteenth notes. The whole rest (a small black rectangle hanging below a staff line) indicates four beats of silence. In practice, whole notes are relatively rare in fast music but common in slow movements and chorale-style writing.
In medieval notation, the longest note was called a maxima and could last up to eight modern whole notes. As music got faster over the centuries, shorter note values had to be invented.