Half rest
A half rest is a small filled block sitting on the middle line of the staff. It marks a silence as long as a half note. In Britain it is called a minim rest.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The half rest is the same shape as the whole rest: an oblong block. What tells them apart is where it sits. The half rest sits on top of a line, usually the third (middle) line; the whole rest hangs below the fourth. There is a rest for each note value, and a dot after a half rest lengthens it by half, as it does a note.
Look-alikes
The whole rest is the same block hanging below the line above the middle one. The two differ only in position.
More music symbols
Sources
- Primer of Facts about Music, M. G. Evans, 1909, Theodore Presser Co. (Internet Archive, University of Toronto), Q. 18–19
- Elements of Music, Harmony, and Musical Form, M. I. Richardson, 1893, Rivington, Percival & Co. (Internet Archive, University of Illinois), Part I, Chapter I, §21
- Elson's Music Dictionary, Louis C. Elson, 1905, Oliver Ditson Company (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Minim rest
- SMuFL: Rests, Standard Music Font Layout, glyph table U+E4E0–U+E4FF, W3C Music Notation Community Group, U+E4E4
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research