h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Over this side of the Atlantic, we have long notes which are represented by an empty oval. These are called semibreves. These are divided into:

2 minims - an empty oval with a stalk
4 crotchets - a filled oval with a stalk
8 quavers - a crotchet with a tail on the stalk
16 semiquavers - a crotchet with two tails on the stalk
32 demisemiquavers - a crotchet with three tails on the stalk
64 hemidemisemiquavers - a crotchet with four tails on the stalk

You can go the other way, with two semibreves combining into a very long note called a breve, which is represented by a sort of rectangle, but these are rare.

I haven't used musical terms since I was in choir as a Freshman in High School, about 14 or 15 years old.

I only remember terms like whole notes, half notes, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes. I can't say that we were never introduced to these other terms, but I don't recall them.

The Americans follow the Germans in this: halbe Noten.

The curious thing is that the longest note mentioned by Gnomon above is the breve. Breve means short.

In the middle ages the Brevis was a third or half a Longa, which was a third or half a Maxima. Half or a third of a Brevis was a Semibrevis. In the fourteenth century a new shorter semibreve was added, and called a Minima.

The crotchet when it came along was first called a semiminima. The nomenclature is confused still, with the French calling the quaver (eighth note, half a crotchet) "croche", not without reason, as it has a squiggle on the stem that looks like a crochet hook. The French word for the English crotchet (quarter note) is noire. In 16th and 17th century English music you still find things that look like crotchets (black notes with stems) but they are a third of a minim rather than a half, and are called "black minims".

Or perhaps a third of a semibreve. That makes more sense.

So did the "noire" look the same as the "black minim"?

It did, and it does.

The French word "crochet" means simply "hook".

Yes, and therefore the crochet hook is a hook hook.

Hooky MacHookface, you might say.