---
title: "Note Values: Whole, Half, Quarter and Eighth Notes · Piakno"
description: "A note’s shape says how long it lasts. When the quarter note gets the beat, a whole note is four beats, a half note two, a quarter one, an eighth half a beat. Each step down the ladder halves the value."
url: "https://piakno.com/theory/note-values"
lang: "en"
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---

# Note values

> A note’s shape says how long it lasts. When the quarter note gets the beat, a whole note is four beats, a half note two, a quarter one, an eighth half a beat. Each step down the ladder halves the value.

Note values are proportions, not durations. "A quarter note is one beat" quietly assumes the lower number of the time signature is 4. What never changes is the ratio: each value is half the one above it.

*Whole, half, quarter, eighth — each one half of the last.*

| Note | Head | Stem | Flags | Beats in 4/4 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Whole note | Open | None | None | 4 |
| Half note | Open | Yes | None | 2 |
| Quarter note | Filled | Yes | None | 1 |
| Eighth note | Filled | Yes | One | ½ |
| Sixteenth note | Filled | Yes | Two | ¼ |

Read the head first: an open head is never short, a filled one is a beat or less. Then count flags — each flag halves the value again. Eighth notes in a group get their flags joined into a beam; that is typesetting and changes nothing about the length.

> A beat is not a second. Tempo decides how long a beat lasts; note values decide only how the notes relate to each other. Keeping those two apart is what makes rhythm readable at any speed.

## Common questions

### How many beats does each type of note get?

It depends on the note the time signature counts. In 4/4 the quarter note is the beat, so a whole note lasts 4 beats and a sixteenth note ¼ beat; in 6/8 each eighth note is the unit, so a quarter note lasts two of them.

### What note is shorter than a sixteenth note?

The thirty-second note, with three flags, lasts ⅛ of a beat. The sixty-fourth note, with four flags, halves that again, though piano music rarely goes past the thirty-second.

### How do you tell a half note from a quarter note?

Look at the note head: a half note has a hollow head with a stem, a quarter note a filled head with a stem. A hollow head with no stem at all is a whole note.

## The course works through this in:

- [Lesson 3 · Beat and note value: the pulse of music](https://piakno.com/course/piano-foundations/lesson/3)

## Related entries

- [Time signature](https://piakno.com/theory/time-signature)
- [Rests](https://piakno.com/theory/rests)
- [Dotted notes](https://piakno.com/theory/dotted-notes)

- [Theory reference](https://piakno.com/theory)