De redonda a garrapatea

First published 19 February 2013 @ sólo algunas palabras

I’ve been starting (never finishing) to learn music a few times, in three different languages. Seeing that it’s an endless process, I thought I may want to write something down before forgetting how, er, those things are called. Or, at least, starting to write things down.

Today, I just want to look at these: ♩ or ♪ or ♫ or suchlike. They are often called “notes”, which is not strictly correct. On its own, any such symbol represents only a note value. The symbols themselves are what is called in French figures de note; I don’t know whether there is a good English equivalent. To represent actual notes, figures de note should be placed on a staff which has a clef on it. (Not today.)

Let’s have a look at the “note” anatomy first. At the very least, it has a note head, which usually (but not always) has an oval shape. All notes shorter than semibreve also have a stem. Finally, all notes shorter than crotchet have one or more flags. When several eighth (or shorter) notes appear next to each other, they may be connected with a beam (or beams).

English	French	Italian	Russian	Spanish
flag (hook, tail)	crochet	coda	флажок	corchete
stem	hampe (queue)	gambo	штиль	plica
note head	tête de note	testa	головка	cabeza

Now that we know the note parts, we can learn the note values. As you can see from the table below, both American English and Russian use rather boring terminology. Anyone who knows how to divide by two can master it in a minute. British English uses much more intriguing words. Take “crotchet”: it sounds very much like French croche. But croche is an Old French word meaning a “hook” (crochet in modern French), something that croche (♪) has but crotchet (♩) lacks. Then there is a quaver and its fractions: semiquaver, demisemiquaver, hemidemisemiquaver and even quasihemidemisemiquaver. Whereas in French system, the names for these just reflect the number of flags: double croche, triple croche and so on.

So far, my favourite system is the Spanish one. The names are short and easy to remember: redonda (round), blanca (white), negra (black), corchea (has a corchete, i.e. hook) and semicorchea (half of corchea). Except maybe for garrapatea (from garrapatear “to scribble”, “to doodle”), although the chances to encounter one are slim. Somewhat confusingly, Spanish fusa (¹/₃₂), which is derived from Italian word fusa (“purr”), is four times longer than Italian fusa (¹/₁₂₈).

Naming the rests in British English, Italian and Spanish is easy. You only have to add the words “rest”, “pausa di” or “silencio de”, respectively. In American English and Russian, replace “note” with “rest” (“нота” with “пауза”). French, however, came up with an amazing system where the rest names have nothing to do with the corresponding note names. For instance, seizième de soupir is rather unlike quadruple croche.

American	British	French	Italian	Russian	Spanish
note	note	note	nota	нота	nota
whole note	semibreve	ronde	semibreve	целая нота	redonda
half note	minim	blanche	minima	половинная нота	blanca
quarter note	crotchet	noire	semiminima	четвертная нота	negra
eighth note	quaver	croche	croma	восьмая нота	corchea
sixteenth note	semiquaver	double croche	semicroma	шестнадцатая нота	semicorchea
thirty-second note	demisemiquaver	triple croche	biscroma	тридцать вторая нота	fusa
sixty-fourth note	hemidemisemiquaver	quadruple croche	semibiscroma	шестьдесят четвертая нота	semifusa
hundred twenty-eighth note	semihemidemisemiquaver or quasihemidemisemiquaver	quintuple croche	fusa, quintupla o fusilla	сто двадцать восьмая нота	garrapatea o cuartifusa
rest	rest	silence	pausa	пауза	silencio
whole rest	semibreve rest	pause	pausa di semibreve	целая пауза	silencio de redonda
half rest	minim rest	demi-pause	pausa di minima	половинная пауза	silencio de blanca
quarter rest	crotchet rest	soupir	pausa di semiminima	четвертная пауза	silencio de negra
eighth rest	quaver rest	demi-soupir	pausa di croma	восьмая пауза	silencio de corchea
sixteenth rest	semiquaver rest	quart de soupir	pausa di semicroma	шестнадцатая пауза	silencio de semicorchea
thirty-second rest	demisemiquaver rest	huitième de soupir	pausa di biscroma	тридцать вторая пауза	silencio de fusa
sixty-fourth rest	hemidemisemiquaver rest	seizième de soupir	pausa di semibiscroma	шестьдесят четвертая пауза	silencio de semifusa
hundred twenty-eighth rest	semihemidemisemiquaver rest or quasihemidemisemiquaver rest	trente-deuxième de soupir	pausa di fusa	сто двадцать восьмая нота	silencio de garrapatea