Ode to the Hemidemisemiquaver

It's not as weird as you think. I was trained musically in the British system in which notes have different names than they do here in the United States. So here's how it goes, since understanding these little guys will be important if you're to get the object lesson.

The longest note in my book is a "breve," known in the U.S. as a "double whole note. It lasts for eight beats, which is more than you generally find in a measure of music. While I suppose there might be some note that would last a longer time, I wouldn't know what it is.

By the way, doesn't it strike you odd that "breve" sounds like it might be related to "brevity?" They are comparatively quite the opposite of each other.

Once you figure out the "breve," there's a note half as long, called the "semibreve," known around here as a "whole note." The length of these is bearable (i.e. four beats), but I sure wouldn't want to sit through a composition made solely of semibreves.

And so it goes. In a typical four-beat measure you can have one semibreve. Or two minims. Or four crotchets. Or you can get really adventuresome and fit in eight quavers (pictured on on the left) into a four-beat measure. Don't eight quavers sound rather jello-like?

But we're not done yet. A quaver has a little flag on it's stick, as you can see. From here on out we just keep on adding flags. So a semiquaver (sixteen in a measure) has two flags. And a demisemiquaver has three flags (thirty-two of those in a measure). And hemidemisemiquaver has four flags.

You can get sixty-four hemidemisemiquavers in a measure. Sixty-four. If you're at all musical, you recognize the nimbleness (Nimbility? Nimblosity? Hmmm. This gets fun!) required to fit sixty-four fast-moving little notes--or variations thereof--into a four-beat measure. That must be why the literature I read says they're rather rare. I believe I've heard an Andres Segovia recording on the guitar with his fingers moving that fast. Maybe. That would be approximately sixteen notes sounding out every second.

There is, by the way, a note faster than the hemidemisemiquaver, but its name is boring: the semihemidemisemiquaver. When you get two "semi's" in there, it loses it's charm, don't you think? Why not keep going with the fun and call it a "yemihemidemisemiquaver," or something similarly irresistible?

Another fascinating tidbit to point out is that for every note there's a rest. If it's a hemidemisemiquaver rest, it's the tiniest micromoment when sound ceases and there's a breath of quiet.

I got to thinking about the hemidemisemiquavers yesterday evening after I mentioned the word and my husband cracked up. (I put on my annoying "I'm an authority; quit laughing" attitude, and he sobered up enough to believe me.) Hemidemisemiquavers represent something deep to me, the more I think about them.

Tiny things--even when you can fit sixteen of them into a heartbeat--are extremely important. Tiny things bear noticing. I've seen this in little expressions that flit across someone's face [To follow interesting posts on the relationship between microexpressions, tiny disconnects in logic, and truth, I highly recommend the blog, "Eyes for Lies." Fascinating]. I've seen it in the tiniest pause when someone is expressing himself verbally. I've seen it in the smallest gift of kindness, if just a gentle pat on someone's shoulder in passing. That "hemidemisemiquaver" of a moment can mean the difference between understanding and misunderstanding, between human connection or isolation, between falsehood and truth, between life and death.

Long live the hemidemisemiquaver, rare though it may be! Long live those with the perceptiveness to notice those "hemidemisemiquaver" moments in life, and to make them count in making someone else's life a little better and truer.