To understand what an eight note is, you have to understand time signatures. A time signature is given as X/Y, where Y is the note that gets a single beat and X is the number of beats in a measure. So, for example, 3/4 time has three beats per measure, and a quarter note gets one beat. 6/8 time has six beats per measure, and an eight note gets one beat.
Time signatures alone don't tell you everything you need to know about the music (for example, 6/8 can be counted with an accent on the first beat only, an accent on the first and third beat, or possibly some other way) but there are certain "understood" ways of interpreting them. Often times, the composer will add notation that tells you how to interpret the music (a "waltzy" 3/4 has a very different feel than a "jig" in 6/8 even though both of them are based on groups of three; a "march" in 4/4 has a very different feel than a "reel" in 4/4 even though they've got the same time signature).
So the time signature tells you which note gets one beat. Then, you need to know the durations of each note. The durations are:
A whole note.
A half note = 1/2 of a whole note.
A quarter note = 1/2 of a half note.
An eight note = 1/2 of a quarter note.
A sixteenth note = 1/2 of an eight note.
A 32nd note = 1/2 of a sixteenth note.
In theory, you could go on forever, but in reality very few musical pieces actually use notes faster than a 32nd note.
It should be noted that one of the eight notes in the afore mentioned avatar is actually a dotted eight. A "dotted" note means that you add one half of the note's duration to itself. So a dotted eight note = 1/8 note + 1/16 note, which is the same duration as three 1/16th notes or 75% of the duration of a quarter note.
The other major type of modification to a note's duration is the "triplet". A triplet is played by playing three of a note in the same time that it would take to play two of the next longer note. So an eight note triplet is three eight notes played in the time of two quarter notes. Triplets are a common embellishment in Irish and Scottish folk music.
Enjoy!
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