What Are the Small “>” Signs Above or Below the Notes?

What are the small “>” signs above or below the notes? We call them accent signs (>).

• Both accents and dynamics show us how loud to play the music in the score. They just do it in different ways.
• Dynamic signs (f = forte = loud, mf = mezzo forte = medium loud, p = piano = soft, etc.) effect large blocks of notes.
• Whereas an accent sign over or under a note makes only that one note or chord louder.

The accent sign looks like a great-than sign from math.

• Mnemonic: play the note with a force greater than you would without the accent.
• This will help you remember the symbol’s name and function.
• Look at the example above, you can see a down-stem has the accent over the staff.
• Likewise, when you have an up-stem note, the accent goes below the staff.

When grouped with other similar signs, we call them articulations of force.

• Tenuto, accents, and marcato signs make up this category.
• The example above shows how the articulations of force get ordered from quietest to loudest.
• The unmarked note will be the quietest and the marcato note will be the loudest.

In addition, how we interpret the accents depends on the dynamics.

• Look at the example below. Piano (p) with an accent tells you to play a little louder than soft.
• Forte (f) with an accent tells you to play a little louder than loud.
• You can get even more subtle loudness shadings with the dynamics when you use tenuto and marcato as well.

When you consider sforzando (sf), sforzato (sfz), and forzando (fz) it just starts to get crazy. (See the Glossary for definitions of these terms.)