Reply To: Artificial Heart discussion
@TamChronin slight correct on time signatures – the top number is how many beats, and the bottom number is which kind of note has been used to mean a beat in the notation. The note type numbers relate directly to American-style note names – 1 for a whole note, 2 for a half note, 4 for a quarter note etc. I suspect the names actually came from the time signature notation, as 5/4 looks a lot like ‘5 quarters in a bar’, thus 5 quarter notes.
Being British, I like being all archaic and mysterious, so I call whole notes ‘semibreves’, half notes ‘minims’ and so forth. Being an early musician, I also encounter breves and longer notes quite regularly too. Sometimes I think people who engrave the final chord of a piece as a longa (that’s four breves, or eight semibreves) with a fermata over it are just taking the mick.
But further music theory discussion to the music theory thread.