thirty-second note
- noun
- /ˈθɜrtiˌsɛkənd noʊt/
- Specialized
:
nota de treinta y dos
- The pianist played several thirty-second notes in a rapid, intricate passage.
Examples
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A thirty-second note is often used in fast, virtuosic music.
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He struggled to count the thirty-second notes in the new piece.
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The piece features several thirty-second notes throughout.
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Can you play a thirty-second note on the piano?
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In this fast-paced piece, the musician played a series of thirty-second notes to create a thrilling effect.
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The composer included several thirty-second notes in the melody to increase the tempo of the song.
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During the performance, the pianist amazed the audience with her ability to execute rapid thirty-second notes flawlessly.
Synonyms
A very short musical note lasting one thirty-second of a whole note
How Long
- Specialized
1
4.2
- Specialized
1
3.6
- Specialized
1
3.9
- Specialized
1
4.8
- Specialized
1
5.8
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is largely compositional: 'thirty-second' modifies 'note', so a learner can infer it denotes a type of musical note and likely that it is very short (related to 32). However, the precise interpretation as 1/32 of a whole note is domain-specific and requires knowledge of musical notation and the ordinal-to-fraction mapping, and many languages use different terms for note durations, so the exact quantitative meaning is not fully predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Thirty-second note comes from how musicians divide a 'whole note' into 32 equal pieces, so a thirty-second is one very small piece. That's why a thirty-second note is played for a very short, quick sound.