Tag: accents

Tip #249 – Neighbor Accents in Harmony

Take a look at the example below:

You will notice that the harmony doesn’t exactly stay the same within the measure – and that is due to the neighbor tones.

Not only does this bring interest to what would otherwise be a stagnant harmony within the context of the measure length, but it also brings attention to the individual notes that make up the harmony.

A trained ear can pick out the different notes that build a harmony, but when one voice changes with the use of neighbor tones, it takes interest to any listener.

Try it out!

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Teach Yourself Music Theory – 22.) Metric Accents and Syncopation

An accent (which we will cover more later) is an emphasis on a note during performance. Usually, this is indicated by the composer on the sheet music to tell the performer on which notes to put the accent.

However, accents can also naturally happen. We have talked about this before with metric grouping. Within a measure a specific number of beats are grouped together. Not only is it used for organization, but it helps tell the performer where to put the emphasis when playing.

A metric accents is a natural emphasis put on a note due to its placement in the meter. Below is a graph with the level of accentuation put on different beats of various metric groupings:

You have probably already realized this knowing that an upbeat is light, while a downbeat is strong.

Now for a new term:

Syncopation, placing the accent on a weak or unexpected part/division of the beat.

When the emphasis avoids the strong metric accents and is applied to the weaker beats, or to the beat divisions (eighth-notes, etc.), it is called syncopation.

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