 |
 |
 |
 |
Arest is the absence of asound for a defined period of time in music, or one of themusical notation signs used to indicate that.
The length of a rest corresponds with that of a particularnote value, thus indicating how long the silence should last. Each type of rest is named for the note value it corresponds with (e.g. quarter note and quarter rest, or quaver and quaver rest), and each of them has a distinctive sign.
Rests are intervals ofsilence in pieces ofmusic, marked by symbols indicating the length of the silence. Each rest symbol and name corresponds with a particularnote value, indicating how long the silence should last, generally as a multiplier of ameasure orwhole note.
| American English | British English | Multiplier | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longa | Long rest | 4 | |
| Double whole rest | Breve rest | 2 |  |
| Whole rest | Semibreve rest | 1 | |
| Half rest | Minim rest | 1⁄2 |  |
| Quarter rest | Crotchet rest | 1⁄4 |  |
| Eighth rest | Quaver rest | 1⁄8 |  |
| Sixteenth rest | Semiquaver rest | 1⁄16 | |
| Thirty-second rest | Demisemiquaver rest | 1⁄32 |  |
| Sixty-fourth rest | Hemidemisemiquaver rest | 1⁄64 |  |
(𝄽) may take a different form
in older music.[1][2][3]When an entirebar is devoid of notes, a whole (semibreve) rest is used, regardless of the actualtime signature.[4] Historically exceptions were made for a4
2 time signature (four half notes per bar), when a double whole (breve) rest was typically used for a bar's rest, and for time signatures shorter than3
16, when a rest of the actual measure length would be used.[5] Some published (usually earlier) music places the numeral "1" above the rest to confirm the extent of the rest.
Occasionally in manuscripts and facsimiles of them, bars of rest are sometimes left completely empty and unmarked, possibly even without the staves.[6]
 |  |
In instrumental parts, rests of more than one bar in the same meter and key may be indicated with a multimeasure rest (British English: multiple bar rest), showing the number of bars of rest, as shown. A multimeasure rest is usually drawn in one of two ways:
The number of bars for which a horizontal line multimeasure rest lasts is indicated by a number printed above the musical staff (usually at the same size as the numerals in a time signature). If a change of meter or key occurs during a multimeasure rest, that rest must be divided into shorter sections for clarity, with the changes of key and/or meter indicated between the rests. Multimeasure rests must also be divided at double barlines, which demarcate musical phrases or sections, and atrehearsal letters.
A rest may also have adot after it, increasing itsduration by half, but this is less commonly used than with notes, except occasionally in modern music notated incompound meters such as6
8 or12
8. In these meters the long-standing convention has been to indicate one beat of rest as a quarter rest followed by an eighth rest (equivalent to three eighths). See:Anacrusis.
In a score for an ensemble piece, "G.P." (general pause) indicates silence for one bar or more for the entire ensemble.[7] Specifically marking general pauses each time they occur (rather than writing them as ordinary rests) is relevant for performers, as making any kind of noise should be avoided there—for instance, page turns in sheet music are not made during general pauses, as the sound of turning the page becomes noticeable when no one is playing.[8]
.jpg)
Erwin Schulhoff's "In Futurum" (the middle movement of his "Fünf Pittoresken", published in 1919) comprises nothing but annotated rests; and results in a silent performance.[9][10]
There are fermatas, exclamation points, question marks, and, in the middle and at the end, enigmatic signs that look like a hybrid of a half note and a smiley face
| Staff | |
|---|---|
| Musical notes | |
| Articulation | |
| Sheet music | |
| Other systems | |
| Related | |
