hemisemidemiquaver
Hemisemidemiquaver is the gloriously unwieldy British music term for a sixty-fourth note — a note value so short it's almost theoretical in practical performance.
Definitions
Hemisemidemiquaver is the gloriously unwieldy British music term for a sixty-fourth note — a note value so short it's almost theoretical in practical performance. Each prefix halves the previous duration: a quaver is an eighth note, a semiquaver a sixteenth, a demisemiquaver a thirty-second, and a hemi-semidemiquaver a sixty-fourth. The word itself is a gift to anyone who loves the absurdist side of music theory or wants to win an argument about the longest word in music.
The composer marked a passage with hemisemidemiquaver runs that the orchestra's woodwind section politely refused to sight-read.
Comments
(UK, music) A sixty-fourth note.
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UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
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Semantically related
- semibreve70%
(music, UK, Irish, Commonwealth) A musical note four beats long in 4/4 time; a whole note (US).
- eighth note66%
(North America, music) A note having one-eighth the duration of a whole note; a quaver.
- quarter note64%
(North America, music) A musical note one beat long in 4/4 time.
- half note63%
(North America, music) A musical note that is two beats long, which is half the length of a semibreve and equal in length to two crotchets; a minim.