What on Earth is a Crotchet?

[May May]

A Crotchet is a musical note that can be seen in sheet music for all
musical instruments. It can be found in all music from beginners to
advanced. Although it's probably more used in beginners music for
reasons of simplicity.
The Crotchet looks like a black coloured oval shape with a short stem.
Depending on where on the staff it is written, determines whether the
stem point upwards or downwards. There are no strict rules about this
but normally, if the note is written below the middle line of the
staff the stem points upwards and is written on the right side of the
Crotchet. Above the middle line the stem points downwards and on the
left side of the Crotchet.
There is a lot of confusion with the Crotchets value in terms of
timing because it's also referred to as a quarter note but is worth
one beat. To better understand why a quarter note is worth one beat
you have to understand that the term quarter note is in reference to
the whole note called a semibreve, which is worth four beats.
All musical notes are referenced from the semibreve. So, if the
semibreve is the whole, all other notes can be described as a part of
the whole, and knowing that four quarters equals the whole or whole
note in this case and the whole equals four, then a quarter of four
equals one and so a quarter note or Crotchet equals one beat.
Also related to the Crotchet is the Crotchet rest or quarter rest.
This is a musical silence worth one beat. In addition, the dotted
Crotchet or dotted quarter note which to confuse things even more, is
worth one and a half beats. It's useful to know that a dot written on
the right side of any musical note, increases that's notes value by
half as much again.



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