Duration is how long a note or rest is to be played. Notes and rests have fractional durations.
A Half-note is half as long as a Whole-note, a Quarter-note is a quarter as long as a Whole-note and is also half as long as a Half-note, and so forth. Each duration will have its own symbol.
Note Durations:
Rests work the same way, just with different symbols.
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Rest Durations:
Dotted Notes:
A Dot after a note indicates an elongation of the note by one-half of the original value of the note that the dot is attached to. For example, if a Half-note has a dot, this tells us that the duration is: Half-note + Quarter-note, or 2 beats + 1 beat (half of two) = 3 total beats.
Beamed notes:
Eighth, Sixteenth, Thirty-second, Sixty-fourth, and One Hundred Twenty-Eighth-notes will usually be beamed together when they are in groups.
Tied Notes:
Ties connect the durations of different notes together into one long note. In the following example a Whole-note is tied to a Quarter-note. The duration then becomes: Whole-note + Quarter-note. (Another way to think of it is: the length of four Quarter-notes + one Quarter-note).
