British & American Musical Terms
Pete teaches primarily in British English — crotchets, quavers, minims. If you prefer American English — quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes — please just say. Either way, this page lines the two vocabularies up, one against the other.
Two names, one music. The American names are fractions of the whole note — halves, quarters, eighths — a system so logical you can hear the maths. The British names are older words that predate it: a little history in every bar. Musicians on either side of the Atlantic read exactly the same notation — only the words differ.
Note values
| British | American | Beats in 4/4 | In a bar of 4/4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| breve | double whole note | 8 | spans two full bars (rare today) |
| semibreve | whole note | 4 | one fills the bar |
| minim | half note | 2 | two to the bar |
| crotchet | quarter note | 1 | four to the bar — the beat itself |
| quaver | eighth note | ½ | eight to the bar |
| semiquaver | sixteenth note | ¼ | sixteen to the bar |
| demisemiquaver | thirty-second note | ⅛ | thirty-two to the bar |
| hemidemisemiquaver | sixty-fourth note | 1/16 | sixty-four to the bar |
Rests carry the same names on both sides: a crotchet rest is a quarter rest, a quaver rest an eighth rest, and so on. Dotted notes and triplets work identically in both systems.
Other terms that differ
| British | American | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| bar | measure | one segment of the music, between two bar lines |
| stave | staff | the five lines music is written on |
| semitone | half step | the smallest gap in Western music — one fret on the bass |
| tone | whole step | two semitones — two frets |
| leading note | leading tone | the seventh degree of the scale, pulling home to the tonic |
| perfect cadence | authentic cadence | the V–I “full stop” at the end of a phrase |
| interrupted cadence | deceptive cadence | V–vi — the ending that swerves somewhere unexpected |
| first-time bar | first ending | the bracketed bars before a repeat, played first time through |
Same word, different spelling
Metre / meter. The pattern of strong and weak beats — what a time signature describes — is metre in Britain and meter in America. The measuring device is a meter everywhere, which is why a metronome is never a “metrenome”.
Practise / practice. British English splits them: you practise (verb) your bass, and the thing you do is your practice (noun). American English uses practice for both. Either way, do it with and without a metronome.
Now put the words to work
Hear these values in action in Pete's lesson on developing timing and the inner clock, or start from the beginning with bass rhythms and notes for beginners.