Accent (music)

In music, an accent is an emphasis placed on a particular note or set of notes, either as a result of its context or specifically indicated by an accent mark. Accents contribute to the articulation and prosody of a performance of a musical phrase. Compared to surrounding notes:

Accents which do not correspond to the stressed beats of the prevailing meter are said to be syncopated.

There are four kinds of agogic accents :

In music notation, an accent mark indicates a louder dynamic to apply to a single note or an articulation mark. The most common is the horizontal accent, the fourth symbol in the diagram above; this is the symbol that most musicians mean when they say accent mark. The vertical accent, third in the diagram, may be stronger or weaker than the horizontal accent; composers have never been consistent in using these markings. In most musical works this type of accent is meant to be played more forcefully and usually shorter. The remaining marks typically shorten a note.

Even when these symbols are absent, experienced musicians will introduce the appropriate gesture according to the style of the music.

Mark McGrain writes about articulation on page 156 in his book Music Notation: Theory and Technique for Music Notation. The marcato accent in the third mark shown is also known as the forzato accent. The notation commonly known as just an accent is also known as the sforzando accent. Neither of these accents alter the durational value of the note or voicing they attend.

Percussion music in particular makes use as well of anti-accent marks, notated as follows:

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