Duration (music)

In music, duration is an amount of time or how long or short a note, phrase, section, or composition lasts.

Release plays an important part in determining the timbre of a musical instrument and is affected by articulation.

Durations, and their beginnings and endings, may be described as long, short, or taking a specific amount of time.

[2] Durational patterns are the foreground details projected against a background metric structure, which includes meter, tempo, and all rhythmic aspects which produce temporal regularity or structure.

But they may also be described using terms borrowed from the metrical feet of poetry: iamb (weak–strong), anapest (weak–weak–strong), trochee (strong–weak), dactyl (strong–weak–weak), and amphibrach (weak–strong–weak), which may overlap to explain ambiguity.