Note value

This dot adds the next briefer note value, making it one and a half times its original duration.

[17] The vertical double dot was introduced by Willi Apel and is commonly used in modern transcriptions of medieval and renaissance music.

Around 1250, Franco of Cologne invented different symbols for different durations, although the relation between different note values could vary; three was the most common ratio.

Both black and white notation periodically made use of ligatures, a holdover from the clivis and porrectus neumes used in chant.

Around 1600 the modern notational system was generally adopted, along with barlines and the practice of writing multipart music in scores rather than only individual parts.

The British names go back at least to English renaissance music, and the terms of Latin origin had international currency at that time.

However, the crotchet is named after the shape of the note, from the Old French for a 'little hook', and it is possible to argue that the same is true of the minim, since the word is also used in palaeography to mean a vertical stroke in mediaeval handwriting.