Two hundred fifty-sixth note

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used 128th and 256th notes in his Variations on "Je suis Lindor", K. 354. Playⓘ at eighth note=40 (quarter note=20)

In music, a two hundred fifty-sixth note, or occasionally demisemihemidemisemiquaver (British),[1] is a note played for 1⁄256 of the duration of a whole note. It lasts half as long as a hundred twenty-eighth note and takes up one quarter of the length of a sixty-fourth note. In musical notation it has a total of six flags or beams. Since human pitch perception begins at 20 Hz (1200/minute), then a 256th-note tremolo becomes a single pitch in perception at quarter note ≈ 18.75 bpm.[original research?]

A single 256th note is always stemmed with flags, while two or more are usually beamed in groups.[2] Notes this short are very rare in printed music, but not unknown. They are principally used for brief, rapid sections in slow movements. For example, they occur in some editions of the second movement (Largo) of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto (Op. 37) (1800), to notate rapid scales.[3] Another example is in Mozart's Variations on "Je suis Lindor" (1778), where four of them are used in the slow (molto adagio) eleventh variation.[4][5] A further example occurs (Grave.Adagio non troppo) in Jan Ladislav Dussek's (1760–1812) Fifth Piano Sonata, Op. 10 No. 2.[6] They also occur (Largo) in Vivaldi's (1678–1741) Concerto, RV 444,[3][7] and in bar 15 of François Couperin's Second Prelude from L'art de toucher le clavecin (1716).[8]

  • 256th note
    256th note
  • 256th rest
    256th rest
  1. ^ Assoja, Kartik; Ernala, Sindhu; Buitelaar, Paul (16–17 October 2014). "UNLP at the C@merata Task: Question Answering on Musical Scores ACM" (PDF). University of Essex. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
  2. ^ Gerou, Tom (1996). Essential Dictionary of Music Notation, p.211. Alfred. ISBN 0-88284-730-9
  3. ^ a b "Extremes of Conventional Music Notation". homes.sice.indiana.edu. Archived from the original on 10 June 2022. Retrieved 2020-04-01.
  4. ^ Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Zwölf Variationen in Es über die Romanze "Je suis Lindor"', K.354. p. 46, fifth system, first bar. Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. (imslp.org)
  5. ^ Thomas Bushnell BSG (8 November 2007). "Re: GPD: official shortest note in lilypond". mail-archive.com.
  6. ^ Piano Sonata No.5, Op.10 No.2 (Dussek, Jan Ladislav): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project. Score of Dussek's Piano Sonata, Op. 10 No. 2 at IMSLP; the 256th notes appear on p.14 (p.3 of the pdf)
  7. ^ Recorder Concerto in C major, RV 444 (Vivaldi, Antonio): Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
  8. ^ Couperin, François; Halford, Margery (2005-05-03). L'Art de toucher le Clavecin: Intermediate to Early Advanced Piano Collection. Alfred Music. ISBN 978-1-4574-4214-8.