Accents

Accents are used to stress one tone more than another. There are 3 ways of accenting a tone: dynamic accents, which are by far the most common; tonic accents, which are notes of higher pitch; and agogic accents, which accent tones by making their duration longer than others. Only dynamic accents require extra notational marks, so those are the types of accents that are covered on this page.


Table of Contents

Accents

Note:

All accents, when occurring in conjunction with slurs, should be placed between the slurs and the notes, except for articulations at the beginning and ending of a phrase.
Ex.D

STACATO/STACATISSIMO

  • Stacatto

  • Stacatissimo:




    TENUTO/SOSTENUTO

    Shape: Horizontal line.

    Placement: Vertically aligned with the notehead, whether on the note or stem-side of the note.

    Tenuto marks are always placed within a space if they fall within the staff.

    Vertically, tenuto marks should be at least an interval of a third above or below the notehead and at most a fourth above or below. If a mark falls on the stem side, it can be 1/2 space from the stem.

    Size: Tenuto marks are slightly thicker than staff lines, and the same length as the width of a notehead. They are not as long as a ledger line.




    MARCATO

    Shape: A sideways "V" shape, pointing to the right.

    Placement:

    Size: 2 spaces wide, with an opening of 1 space.




    SFORZANDO/SFORZATO

    Shape: V-shaped, with one side heavier. When the mark is above the note, the right side is heavier; when it is below, the left side is heavier.

    Placement: Usually on the notehead side, but when conditions prevent that, it can be placed on the stem side.

    Vertically aligned with the notehead.

    It can be placed within the staff more easily than the marcato mark, but when it falls within the staff, it should be placed so the space in the middle is easily seen, and not bisected by staff lines.

    If there is a dot with the sforzando mark, it should be placed right below the open end of the sforzando mark. When a dot and a sforzando mark are placed on the stem side, they should be vertically aligned with the stem.

    Size: 1 space wide, 1 space high.




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