A basic definition of the word accent in music is very simple: an emphasis on a pitch or a chord. But in practice, musical accents are created by many different kinds of factors, each factor constituting a different level or dimension of musical perception. Accent, then, is a multidimensional concept.
Musicians and musicologists widely accept the idea that music has four fundamentally different kinds of accent: dynamic, tonic, agogic, and metric.
Dynamic Accent
A dynamic accent is an emphasis created when a pitch or chord is louder than its surroundings. This, of course, is the most familiar kind of accent.
An extensive catalog of words, abbreviations, and signs has evolved to indicate degrees of loudness in music. Those indicators are called dynamic marks (dynamics for short). The most common, from soft to loud, include pianissimo (pp), piano (p), forte (f), and fortissimo (ff).
A dynamic accent, that is, increased loudness, on an individual pitch or chord within its current context may be indicated by words or, more usually, by abbreviations. Examples include forzando or forzato (fz), rinforzando (rf, rfz), and, most frequently, sforzando or sforzato (sf, sfz).
A common pattern is sfp, a dynamic accent followed immediately by piano. A similar pattern is forte-piano (fp), loud followed immediately by soft.
However, dynamic accents are indicated much more often by signs than by words. A wide range of traditional and recently invented symbols are used for the purpose.
Musicians and musicologists divide dynamic accent marks into two broad categories: those for percussive attacks and those for pressure attacks. Percussive attacks occur at the higher (louder) dynamic levels, and the symbols indicate a range from moderately strong attacks to very sharp attacks. Pressure attacks occur at the lower (softer) dynamic levels, and they, too, have a range of stresses; they may be described as “leaning” on pitches or chords rather than sharply attacking them.
Tonic Accent
A tonic accent is an emphasis created when a pitch is higher than its surroundings. The word tonic refers to the fact that the accent is produced by the tone (pitch level) itself.
Typically, this kind of accent results from a melodic leap to a higher tone within a given line.
Agogic Accent
An agogic accent is an emphasis created when a tone is of longer duration than the tones in its surroundings. The word agogic is derived from German agogisch (based on Greek agoge, literally “the act of carrying away,” extended “musical tempo”).
The adjective agogic means of or relating to agogics, the subtleties of musical performance achieved by nuances of time, especially the theory that musical emphasis involves not only dynamic stress but also stress implied in the length of tones.
Typically, this kind of accent results from a tone being held longer than the preceding and succeeding tones within a given line.
Metric Accent
A metric accent is an emphasis created in the first beat of a recurring pattern of beats (called the meter) in measured music. Most classical, folk, and popular music employs such regular patterns, which, in notation, are set off by vertical bar lines. Each bar line marks the beginning of one recurrence, or measure, of the beat pattern.
A regularly recurring metric accent, that is, the stressed first beat in a measure, does not necessarily depend for its emphasis on the placement of dynamic, tonic, or agogic accents. In other words, this beat, often called the “strong” beat of the measure, may be, but does not have to be, louder, higher, or longer than the “weak” beats to fulfill its function.
The creation of metric accents depends primarily on the manipulation of tonal materials. In traditional tonal music, for example, harmonic rhythm, the rhythmic pattern created by successive harmonies, typically reinforces the meter, especially by the use of key-defining chords on strong beats.
A momentary contradiction of the prevailing meter-that is, having a strong impulse where one is not expected and suppressing the normal accent of the pulse-is called a syncopation. Syncopation is often created by using dynamic, tonic, or agogic accents to offset the established metric pulse.
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Grout, Donald Jay, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 2001.
The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.
