Accenting Help?

Yami_Chou · Post by **Yami_Chou** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 3:23 am

Can anyone help me on practicing accenting? I don't know what else to put here, but in general, can anyone help me on ways to practice this so that my accenting (while I play any sort of piece that requires it) can be more defined?

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 10:27 am

Well there are a couple of different ways to accent a note....Tongue accents and breath accents. With a breath accent (which is very useful for accents in slurred passages), you simply use more air for the accented notes, which should make them stick out more. Be careful however, that the additional air does not diminish tone or cause notes to crack. To work on these, I would suggest scales. Define one note in the scale (Let's say the 5th for example's sake), and play up and down the scale slowly (slurred), getting in a really nice, clear, accented 5th. Even overdo the accent a bit to really show the difference between the accented notes and the non accented notes. Then begin to speed it up. You can change which note you're accenting, or put in multiple accents in some sort of pattern as you become more accustomed to this. For the tongue accent, it's a slightly stronger articulation, supported by the air. You don't want it to be so harsh that you can hear the tongue, but it should be obvious which notes are accented and which are not. For this, you could use the exercise I described above, or choose one pitch that you're comfortable with (maybe a G or a Bb in the second octave), and start with simple patterns. Tongue straight eighth notes, without accents. Take note of what that sounds like. Then place an accent on every other eighth. Then try the second eighth of each beat. Then perhaps more sporadically or in a different rhythm, and with other pitches thrown in. I'm sure some of the others on here will have excellent suggestions for you, but I hope that helps in the meantime.

Yami_Chou · Post by **Yami_Chou** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:45 am

Anything helps really, other than using it for my personal use, I can teach it to the rest of my section (I'm section leader). Thanks for your help ^___^

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:40 pm

No problem! Good luck teaching your section to accent....Most likely it's not that they don't know HOW to accent, but that they're too concerned with other things (notes and rhythms) to be concerned with the small details. Be sure to point out how important the small details are....They really differentiate between a good performance and an excellent one.

Yami_Chou · Post by **Yami_Chou** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:04 am

Oh, don't worry X__X I keep on repeating what my lessons teacher says: "Music is about details". And it's really true, so, I try to pass it on to my section ^__^ Small section, lots of love, so shouldn't be no problem.

But yeah, thanks ^__^

flutepicc06 · Post by **flutepicc06** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:07 am

Glad to help. I hope they benefit from my suggestions.