Whole rest
A whole rest is a small filled block hanging below the fourth line of the staff. It marks a silence as long as a whole note, and is also used for a whole measure of silence in almost any time signature.
Easily confused with
How to read it
The block fills half the space under the line it hangs from, usually the fourth line from the bottom. Its value is less fixed than other rests’: besides standing for a whole note’s silence, it is written as a rest for a whole measure, whether the measure holds four beats, three or two. Germans call it Taktpause, “measure rest”, for that reason.
Look-alikes
The half rest is the same block, but it sits on top of a line, usually the middle one, instead of hanging below.
When the measure is longer than a whole note
Stainer and Barrett’s dictionary (1898) says that when a measure holds more than a whole note, a whole-measure rest is usually written as the breve (double whole) rest instead, though the rule is not universal and some writers use the whole rest.
More music symbols
Sources
- Music Notation and Terminology, Karl W. Gehrkens, 1914, A. S. Barnes Company (Project Gutenberg), Chapter III, §33
- Primer of Facts about Music, M. G. Evans, 1909, Theodore Presser Co. (Internet Archive, University of Toronto), Q. 18
- Elements of Music, Harmony, and Musical Form, M. I. Richardson, 1893, Rivington, Percival & Co. (Internet Archive, University of Illinois), Part I, Chapter I, §21
- Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of Musical Terms, John Stainer and W. A. Barrett, new and revised edition, 1898, Novello (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Rests
- Elson's Music Dictionary, Louis C. Elson, 1905, Oliver Ditson Company (Internet Archive, Cornell University Library), Rest
- SMuFL: Rests, Standard Music Font Layout, glyph table U+E4E0–U+E4FF, W3C Music Notation Community Group, U+E4E3
Last reviewed September 26, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research