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According to this article, the longa has a stem, but the "double-longa" does not. What about the maxima - which has a longer stem than the longa, and is used in mensural notation to indicate a time period of two longas&hellip. True, neither notation is used much any more, but it is still being taught - at least at the university level.

Additionally, according to Wikipedia's own article on Mensural notation, the correct term is a "duplex-longa", not a double longa. Just wondering.... - NDCompuGeek ( talk) 16:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC) reply

The stem on the maxima is usually the same length as a long of the same size; it's the note head which is wider; usually twice the width in Renaissance white-notation scores, but often much longer in pre-1425 scores, especially at the ends of pieces where it sometimes fills the entire rest of the line to the right margin. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Wouldn't a longa with no stem be a breve? ²³¹ ₉₁ Pa ( chat me!) 13:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC) reply

yes. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 16:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC) reply

Is the stem really (like in the image) coming out from the other side to that of, for example, a minim? Double sharp ( talk) 15:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC) reply

The stem of a longa is always at the right of the (square) note head, whether ascending or descending. In the notational practice of the period in which the longa was used, a minim usually had a lozenge-shaped note head, with the stem either descending or ascending from the centre. There is a table here that should clarify matters somewhat.— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 16:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the explanation. (BTW, I meant the current minim, but that doesn't matter.) Double sharp ( talk) 13:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, I assumed you meant the current form of the minim. My point is that the longa is not really a part of modern musical notation, though I suppose it may occur, even if only rarely. Therefore one might reasonably expect that the rules of its formation may not conform entirely to those of modern notation.— Jerome Kohl ( talk) 15:54, 31 July 2012 (UTC) reply

It sort of leads a phantom existence in MuseScore, where one way of inserting very long notes is to "spill over" to the next measure: the tying is automatically done. It gets a glyph for its note and rest and gets called a " quadruple whole note" in the glossary. (Not the maxima, though.) Double sharp ( talk) 15:25, 3 June 2016 (UTC) reply

So you can make them square! (@_@) You need to set the notehead style to Baroque (which also provides a glyph for the maxima: in default style, you can insert maximas but they won't show up). However it seems as though the Wikipedia implementation doesn't cover that. Double sharp ( talk) 14:01, 4 June 2016 (UTC) reply