This article is about notation for notes shorter than a semiquaver but longer than the shortest note head in traditional sheet music notation. In this case, we will call them demi-semi-hemi-demi-semiquavers.
What Is The Demi-Semi-Hemi-Demi-Semi Quaver?
The demi-semi quaver (also known as the semiquaver rest) is a musical notation denoting a note or rest of half the value of a regular quaver (semiquaver).
It usually has a thickness and appearance somewhere between an eighth note (quaver) and a sixteenth note (semiquaver).
The demi-semi quaver is generally shown as a hollow note head with a straight or curly beam to the right. The exact value (the semiquaver rest) also has a corresponding symbol.
To count it, one would say “one-[pause]-and-“two”-“THREE”-“four” for each group of four demi-semi quavers.
Alternatively, one could use any standard compound meter such as 3/8 or 6/8 and count 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a.
Notice that these two methods give you different numbers for this duration: three-beat in the first method and six in the second.
One Hundred Twenty-Eighth NoteÂ
The one hundred twenty-eighth note is a musical symbol used for:
1). Minim (American) or semibreve (British) rest, and
2). Half-note. A single box corresponds to the whole note, and four corresponds to the quarter note. Unlike other notes in this group, it has no stem, such as the dotted sixty-fourth note.
However, it is included in some versions of musical notation, such as Italian Tablature. The one hundred twenty-eight represents half of its more excellent series unit.
It also represents half of its lesser series units, which are thirty-second notes and sixty-fourth notes, respectively. Thus it can be said that it falls within the fusa grouping.
In modern usage, “one hundred twenty-eight” is sometimes substituted with “one hundred thirty.”
Examples of One Hundred Twenty-Eighth Note
Example 1:
An example of a ‘one hundred twenty-eighth note’ is the melody in “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” immediately following the second line.
The first note is held for triplets (3), then there are two pairs of notes back to back (2/2), and then another three notes again (3). This pattern continues throughout the song.
Example 2:
In the song “Row Row Row Your Boat,” there is a “one hundred twenty eighth note” on beat two of line one and beat three of line four.
It sounds like a quarter note but has a dot next to it, meaning it is held for half as long as a typical quarter note.
This same rhythm pattern continues throughout the song, the only exception. You can check this by looking at any of your sheet music for this song; you will be able to see the ‘one hundred twenty eighth notes’ throughout all of it.
Hemi Demi Semi Quaver Rest – Understanding and Using Them
A semidemiquaver rest is a musical rest that lasts for half the value of a semiquaver or 1/ 32 th of a whole note.
There are two types of semihemidemisemi quaver rest on the keyboard:
- The white and
- the black one
Note affected by taking a semihemideamisemi quaver rest from underneath them includes any notes on crotchets or shorter (like eighth notes), but not quavers, those remain unchanged beneath it.
You get two semidemisemiquavers in a bar when you take out both black and white rests.
When you see semihemidemisemiquaver rest in the score, it is often abbreviated to semi-h or ‘h.’
The Wonderful World of Hemi Demi Semi Quaver Beats
Hemi demi semi quaver beats are a more complicated variant of the common beat. The hemi demi semi quaver beats replace each eighth note with a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note.
They are often used in modern music to add variation to music that would otherwise be repetitive. Hemi demi semi quaver beats are shown in the following example.
Hemi Demi Semi Quaver Beats on Eighth Notes
Common beats can be further expressed with a scoring diagram to show how these beats occur within a measure of music. The quarter note represents one beat, and each space on the horizontal line divides that beat.
A vertical line extends from each beat division to show how long each division is. For example, if a beat is half as long as another, it has two divisions while the other has four.
A Brief Primer on the Hemi Demi Semi Quaver Value
In music notation, a hemi or semi-breve is equal to half of a breve. One hemi demi semi-quaver has a value of half of a semi-quaver, which is also known as a demisemiquaver.
One hemi demi semi-quaver has a musical note value of one thirty-second note since there are four notes in one bar and each being worth an eighth note (or thirty-second).
There are twelve-thirty seconds in every whole note, though. Therefore, the beats per minute must be increased by four times if one wants to determine how many will occur within that time frame as well as twice as fast as the sixteenths become sixteenth notes. It would be two sixteenth notes per beat in this case, too.
The structure of a Hemi demi semi-quaver is the same as that of a standard note, consisting of head, stem, and tail. It may be single or double-headed and triple-headed in some rare cases.
What is a 512th Note Called?
In music, a 512th note is not an actual musical note. Instead, it is a unit used to describe the length of any given note. A 512th note represents half the length of a quarter note (which would be called a 256th note).
The prefix “512” comes from the number of divisions within an octave. The rest of each octave’s notes are derived by this pattern (basically 2^N where N=1-7):
- 512 = 1
- 1024 = 2
- 2048 = 4
- 4096 = 8
- 8192 = 16
- 16384 = 32
- 32768 = 64
- 65536 = 128
- 131072 = 256
Two different notations are used for these values: scientific notation, which uses a decimal point and a power of ten, and MIDI note values (which can be one hexadecimal digit), but they both mean the same thing.
So a 512th note would be half the length of a 256th note or 1/512th of an octave. If you know that each octave is 12 notes long, then it’s easy to see why there are 7/12ths in between each 512th note.
What Comes After Hemidemisemiquaver?
The next note in the musical system is semihemidemisemiquaver. Semihemidemisemiquavers are notated with two flags and a beam, whereas demihemidemisemiquavers are notated with three flags.
The next standard note after semihemidemisemiquaver is quaver (or ‘eighth’), so it would be correct to say that semiquavers are the eighth notes before quavers.
Quavers are also known as crotchets, meaning semiquavers are the eighth notes before crotchets.
Quavers take up one-half of a beat, so semiquavers take up one-quarter of a beat.
Semihemidemisemiquaver is also known as Demisemiquaver. This name comes from “demi,” meaning ‘half.’
Therefore, semi minims are demisemiquavers, semidemis are semihemidemisemiquavers, and semisemidemis are hemidemisemiquavers.
After semihemidemisemiquaver, there are no other standard musical notation abbreviations until the following note in the system quaver (or eighth).
For example, there are no half notes after semihemidemisemiquaver because it takes two flags to represent a half note. So nothing will come after hemidemisemiquaver.
Conclusion
The demi-semi-Hemi-demi-semiquaver (American) or semiquaver (British) is a musical note that typically lasts half the duration of a sixteenth note (or ​semiquaver), hence the name.
It is also the equivalent in British terminology of the American semicoma. However, the “t” value in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese music notations for this kind of note is the quarter note (crotchet).
