Eighth note

Read the words beside it as sung. Put ♪ around a lyric or a playful hum; it sets a musical mood without naming a pitch. Your text font draws it, so its look changes between devices.

In a score, an eighth note lasts half as long as a quarter note. Alone it carries a flag; neighbouring eighth notes share a beam instead.

Where did the music note symbol come from?

It evolved from Western notation for measuring musical time. Mensural notation, the medieval system that first made note shapes show exact length, took hold in the 13th century. The quaver's shorter value probably emerged around 1400 for finer rhythms, not necessarily in today's exact shape.