dotted half note and dotted quarter note: what the dot adds
A dotted half note lasts 3 beats and a dotted quarter note lasts 1.5 beats, because one dot adds half of the note’s own value to it. Two quarters plus one is three; one quarter plus a half is one and a half. Both figures below are counted in quarter notes, which is the beat in 3/4 and in 4/4.
This page’s own count: a 24-second recording of the canon at the octave from Bach’s Goldberg Variations reads 111.6 on the BPM finder. That pulse is the length of a quarter note, so the dotted-quarter beat is 111.6 ÷ 1.5 = 74.4 per minute, one beat every 0.806 seconds.
One dot, half the value again
A dot sits to the right of a note head, never above it. It lengthens that note by half of what the note already was, and it does the same job on a half note and on a quarter note. The dot is not a rest and it is not a tie; it changes one note’s length.
| Note | Plain | The dot adds | Dotted | In eighth notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half note | 2 beats | 1 beat | 3 beats | 6 |
| Quarter note | 1 beat | half a beat | 1.5 beats | 3 |
Half note: 2 + (2 ÷ 2) = 2 + 1 = 3 beats. Quarter note: 1 + (1 ÷ 2) = 1 + 0.5 = 1.5 beats. Three eighth notes fill a dotted quarter, and six fill a dotted half.
Where a dotted half note fits
A dotted half is three quarter-note beats long. In 3/4 that is the whole bar: the note starts on beat 1 and is still sounding when the bar line arrives. In 4/4 it covers beats 1, 2 and 3 and leaves the fourth beat empty, so something else has to be written there — a quarter note, a quarter rest, or two eighths. A dotted half is never the whole of a 4/4 bar.
| Signature | Beats in the bar | Dotted half covers | Left over |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3/4 | 3 | all 3 | nothing: the bar is full |
| 4/4 | 4 | 3 | 1 beat, which needs its own note or rest |
How the top number of a signature sets that beat count is on read the two numbers in a time signature, and what the bar itself is called is on bar measure music.
A dotted quarter note and the eighth after it
A dotted quarter note is one and a half quarter-note beats, which is the same length as three eighth notes. In 4/4 a dotted quarter plus one eighth note adds up to two beats: the dotted quarter takes the first beat and a half, and the eighth takes the second half of beat 2. That pair is the most common way a composer writes a long-short step inside a bar.
Dotted quarter + eighth = 1.5 + 0.5 = 2 beats, or 3 + 1 = 4 eighth notes. In a 6/8 bar those four eighths are four of the bar’s six.
In 6/8 the dotted quarter is not a long-short figure at all: it is the beat itself, and each beat splits into three eighth notes. That grouping is the subject of 6/8 and 3/4 side by side and of compound time, so this page only uses it for the recording below.
How many seconds each dotted note lasts
Seconds are beats multiplied by 60 and divided by the tempo. The dotted half is 3 beats and the dotted quarter is 1.5 beats, so the two columns below follow from one tempo each. Every cell prints its own arithmetic.
| BPM | Dotted half note (3 beats) | Dotted quarter note (1.5 beats) |
|---|---|---|
| 60 |
3.000 s 3 × 60 ÷ 60 = 180 ÷ 60 |
1.500 s 1.5 × 60 ÷ 60 = 90 ÷ 60 |
| 90 |
2.000 s 3 × 60 ÷ 90 = 180 ÷ 90 |
1.000 s 1.5 × 60 ÷ 90 = 90 ÷ 90 |
| 120 |
1.500 s 3 × 60 ÷ 120 = 180 ÷ 120 |
0.750 s 1.5 × 60 ÷ 120 = 90 ÷ 120 |
All six values come out exact at these three tempos, so nothing here is rounded. Turning one of those seconds into a delay in milliseconds is BPM to ms.
Reading a mark like dotted quarter = 100
A mark of dotted quarter = 100 is a metronome mark: 100 dotted quarters in one minute. It is read as a note value and a number, and the note value is whatever stands to the left of the equals sign — here the dotted quarter, not the quarter. So the beat is 60 ÷ 100 = 0.600 seconds long, and a 6/8 bar of two such beats is 1.200 seconds.
Reversing it: a quarter-note reading becomes a dotted-quarter reading by dividing by 1.5, because the dotted quarter is 1.5 quarters. 100 quarter notes a minute is 100 ÷ 1.5 = 66.7 dotted quarters a minute; 100 dotted quarters a minute is 100 × 1.5 = 150 quarter notes a minute. A finder that reports one pulse per minute does not name the note, so the note has to come from the score.
A recorded example you can check
Wikipedia’s article Goldberg Variations, read on 23 October 2026, calls Variation 24 “a canon at the octave, in 9/8 time”. A separate engraved score of that variation, the Commons file open-goldberg-variations.pdf (page 42), heads it “VARIATIO 24 a 1 Clav. / Canone all’Ottava” and prints one sharp and a 9/8 signature at the start of both staves, and the left hand opens bars 1 and 2 with a dotted quarter. The article names the metre and the score prints it; they are separate documents.
Neither document prints a metronome mark, so this variation has no printed tempo to compare against. The number on this page is this site’s own reading, not the composer’s.
On 23 October 2026 at 02:09 EDT this site’s BPM finder read this 24-second clip as 111.6 pulses a minute, and offered half (55.8) and double (223.2) beside it with the note “Check against your audio”. The finder does not say which note value its pulse is. In this clip the attacks run 0.267 seconds apart, three to a dotted quarter, so the pulse at 111.6 sits on two of them — one quarter note’s worth — and the dotted quarter is 111.6 ÷ 1.5 = 74.4 a minute, one beat every 0.806 seconds. A second count of the same file, taken from its attack pattern alone, put the three-eighth group at 74.9 a minute, 0.7% away from the 74.4.
Dotted half note and dotted quarter note: quick answers
How many beats is a dotted half note?
Three quarter-note beats. Two beats for the half note and one more for the dot.
How many beats is a dotted quarter note?
One and a half quarter-note beats, which is the same as three eighth notes.
What does dotted quarter note = 100 mean?
100 dotted-quarter beats in one minute, so one beat lasts 0.600 seconds. In 6/8 a bar of two beats lasts 1.200 seconds.
Can a dotted half note fill a 4/4 bar?
No. It fills three of the four beats, and the fourth beat needs its own note or rest. In 3/4 it does fill the whole bar.
Do I hold a dotted half note down for the whole bar?
For its three beats, yes. In 3/4 that is the bar; in 4/4 you release it when beat 4 begins and play whatever is written there.
Can a 3/4 bar hold two dotted quarter notes?
Yes. Two dotted quarters are 1.5 + 1.5 = 3 beats, which is exactly one 3/4 bar.
What this page leaves open
- The values here are counted in quarter notes. A signature whose bottom number is 8 or 2 changes which note is the beat, and that is a time-signature question.
- Double dots, dotted rests, and dots on tied notes are not covered.
- 111.6 and 74.4 describe this 24-second file only. Another pianist’s canon will read differently.
- The score of this variation prints no metronome mark, so no printed tempo is being confirmed or contradicted here.
- The 24-second clip starts at the beginning of the variation; the take, its repeats and its tuning are the performer’s, not a rule for the piece.