Music notation glossary · Note values
Whole note
four beats in common time
As a Unicode character — to paste into text, spreadsheets or chat. Whether it appears depends on the font.
In the score
What it means
An open notehead with no stem. In 4/4 it fills a whole bar by itself. Every other note value is a fraction of it, which is where the name comes from.
Related pages
Anotona does this for you
Photograph a page of sheet music or play the melody — Anotona finds the key, engraves the notes and transposes them into any other. Free.
See AnotonaEvery note on this page is computed, not typed in — following the rule that also makes F# major spell its seventh degree E#, not F.