Whole rest, half rest… Learn to recognize the 7 music rests and the corresponding durations of the 7 notes values (whole note, half note…) they represent.
In music, musical rests denote brief silences, serving as short breaks in the flow of sound. In musical notation, a rest is the symbol that signifies such a pause.
Just as there are music notes of different values (whole note, half note, etc.), there are rests of different values (whole rest, half rest…).
For each note value, there is a rest of equivalent value; and for each rest value, there is a note of equivalent value.
Music Rests of Different Values
The example below shows how some of the music notes making up a musical phrase can be replaced with music rests of equivalent lengths.
Now, the same musical phrase, but some music notes have been changed in rests:
Note Value and Silence of an Equivalent Duration
There is a musical silence for each value of note
The whole rest, which is positioned below the fourth line of the staff – remember, lines on the musical staff are always counted from the bottom up – represents a musical rest lasting the same duration as a whole note.
The half rest, positioned on the third line of the staff, equals the duration of a half note.
The quarter rest equals the duration of a quarter note.
The eighth rest equals the duration of the eight note, the sixteenth rest equals the duration of the sixteenth note, the thirty-second rest equals the duration of the thirty-second note, and the sixty-fourth rest equals the duration of the sixty-four note.
Silence for an entire mesure
When indicating silence for an entire measure, always use a whole rest symbol, regardless of the measure’s duration.
For instance, if the piece is written in 3/4 time (meaning it consists of three beats per measure, each worth a quarter note), even though three quarter notes equal a dotted half note rather than a whole note, you should still use a whole rest symbol to indicate the silence.
Difference Between American English and British English
AMERICAN ENGLISH – BRITISH ENGLISH
- Whole Rest – Semibreve Rest
- Half Rest – Minim Rest
- Quarter Rest – Crotchet Rest
- Eight Rest – Quaver Rest
Learn How to Read Your First Music Note in 1 Minute!
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Dotted Rest
Even though it’s possible and can sometimes be found in contemporary music compositions (or old compositions edited and published on a computer), it’s not common practice to dot rests.
Thus, for example, to replace a dotted half note with a rest of equivalent duration, you would use a half rest (corresponding to the half note) and a quarter rest (the dot placed after a half note equals a quarter note, and the quarter rest is the rest for a quarter note).
Below are two scores of Beethoven’s famous piece, Für Elise (For Elise). In the first video, the musician chose—or let his software choose for him!—to use a dotted eighth rest instead of a sixteenth rest and an eighth rest (left hand, on the lower staff written in bass clef, measures 4, 5, 7, etc.). He also used a dotted quarter rest (left hand, measures 2 and 6), which is correct from a mathematical point of view but incorrect in terms of music theory. As noted above, when a measure is empty, you always use a whole rest.
In terms of the tempo marking, quarter note = 44, and although the metronome was invented during the composer’s lifetime, it is not by Beethoven’s hand.
In the score of the second video, the dotted eighth rest in the left hand has indeed been replaced by a sixteenth rest and an eighth rest (the piece being in 3/8 time, which means it has three beats, and each beat is worth one eighth note, so it is normal for the sixteenth rest that replaces the sixteenth note on the second part of the second beat to be written before the eighth rest that replaces the eighth note or the two sixteenth notes of the third beat).
Likewise, the dotted quarter rest in measures two and six has indeed been replaced by a whole rest, as is customary to indicate a rest for an entire measure.
It is also customary to omit the rests placed at the beginning of a piece of music. Beethoven’s piece begins on the third beat, with each beat equivalent to an eighth note, so the piece should have started with two eighth rests (the eighth rest being the rest for the eighth note) or a quarter rest. On this point, the two scores from both videos are therefore correct.
Uncommon musical rests
They correspond to very rarely used note figures: the longa rest is the rest of the double whole note, the thirty-second rest is the rest of the one hundred twenty-eighth note.