# Half note

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{{Short description|Musical note duration}}
{{About|the musical note}}
{{refimprove|date=October 2014}}
thumb|Figure 1: A half note with stem facing up, a half note with stem facing down, and a half rest
{{Duple note values}}
In [music](/source/music), a '''half note''' (American) or '''minim''' (British) is a [note](/source/Musical_note) played for half the duration of a [whole note](/source/whole_note) (or semibreve) and twice the duration of a [quarter note](/source/quarter_note) (or crotchet). It was given its Latin name (''minima'', meaning "least or smallest") because it was the shortest of the five note values used in [early medieval music notation](/source/mensural_notation).<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Morehen|first1=John|last2=Rastall|first2=Richard|year=2001|title=Minim|encyclopedia=[Grove Music Online](/source/Grove_Music_Online)|doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.18736}}</ref> 
Half notes are notated with a hollow oval [notehead](/source/notehead) like a whole note and straight [note stem](/source/note_stem) with no [flags](/source/flag_(music)) like a quarter note (see Figure 1). The '''half rest''' (or '''minim rest''') denotes a silence of the same duration. Half [rests](/source/rest_(music)) are drawn as filled-in rectangles sitting on top of the middle line of the [musical staff](/source/musical_staff), although in [polyphonic](/source/polyphonic) music the rest may need to be moved to a different line or even a [ledger line](/source/ledger_line). As with all notes with stems, half notes are drawn with upward stems on the right when they are below the middle line of the staff and downward stems on the left when they are on or above the middle line. In vocal music, notes on the middle line have a downward stem instead of an upward stem.

The American term ''half note'' is a 19th-century [loan translation](/source/loan_translation) of German ''halbe Note''.

The Catalan, French, and Spanish names (''blanca'', ''blanche'', meaning "white") derive from the fact that the ''minima'' was the shortest unfilled note in mensural white notation, which is true of the modern form as well. The form in the earlier black notation resembles the modern quarter note (crotchet). The Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean names mean "half", and in Greek, the modern word (''miso'' – μισό) and older (''imisi'' – ήμισι) are used.

== See also ==
* [List of musical symbols](/source/List_of_musical_symbols)

==References==
<references />

{{Musical note values}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Half Note}}
Category:Note values
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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Half note](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_note) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_note?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.