Musical Note

A single eighth note, the one with a flag on its stem.

In written music, a note's shape tells you how long it lasts. The eighth note (called a quaver in British English) has a filled-in head, a stem and a little flag, and it is the shape most people picture when they think "music". That is why it became the standard icon for music on cassette players, media apps and now emoji. The emoji shows no pitch or key; it just stands for music in general.

It arrived with the first big batch of emoji in 2010, carried over from the picture icons on Japanese mobile phones, which is also where its cheerful flavour comes from. Where English speakers read 🎵 simply as "music", Japanese texters have long used a note at the end of a sentence the way others use a smiley, to make the line sound light and happy.

What does it mean when someone sends 🎵?

They are thinking about music, singing, or quoting a song.

On its own, 🎵 is a hum: a song on their mind, a good mood, or a reply to your "what are you up to?" that means "listening to music". Next to a song title or a link it works as a now-playing tag. Around a line of text it works as musical quotation marks: 🎵 between the notes are lyrics, not the sender's own words 🎵. Put around the sender's own words, the same notes suggest they are singing the message to you, usually playfully.

At the end of an ordinary sentence, especially from someone used to Japanese or Korean chat habits, the note is a tone marker rather than a reference to music: it means the line was said in a happy, sing-song voice. Read it as a smile.