ACCENT-BASED MUSICALITY
We understand accents as marks or very short musical changes that stand out in a piece of music. They can be part of the melody, the accompaniment, or the rhythmic base.
It is important to understand that we are referring to a subjective concept, to something perceived by the person listening to the music. This means not everyone will understand an accent in the same way. Obviously, the more contrast the musical change has over the rest of the music, the more dancers will recognise it as an accent, and the more universal it will be.
Accents can also be part of the response that some instruments make to the melody of the song or as a way to reinforce the 1.
From the point of view of the interpretation of music, accents have the advantage that they are usually repetitive and, therefore, more easily predictable (we can anticipate when an accent will come and, therefore, we can more easily express it in our dance). But we all know that accents can be sometimes misleading, just like with the prediction of breaks (take a look at the section predicting breaks for a more detailed discussion of this topic). Repeatability is not always fully predictable and, in addition, the different bands can make different versions of the same song and omit or change an accent that was present in the original version.
However, we believe that highlighting an accent that musicians do not actually play is not wrong; rather it is our own interpretation of the music and the contribution we make as dancers.
To avoid any confusion about what we mean by accents, we suggest watching this video where we have marked a few examples of the accents we considered most important:
0:06 a 0:38 The accents in the song Easy Does It are the answers the wind section gives to the melody.
0:41 a 1:19 The well-known song I Diddle shows us the typical repetitive structure of accents.
1:21 a 2:03 In The Java Joint accents help us to perceive the 1. As can be seen in other aspects of musical interpretation, the last eight of each phrase is clearly differentiated from its predecessors. In this case note that the fourth eight does not have an accents on the 1. Even more, there are no accents in the B phrases. In this case it will be very useful to perceive the phrase structure so you can better predict whether there will be an accent or not on the next eight.
2:05 a 2:33 In Flying Home accents answer the melody.
2:35 a 3.26 In Be Careful each eight has a different answer to the melody. But this apparently variable structure of answers will be the same throughout the song.
3:27 a 4:08 Makin Whoopee has an interesting repertoire of different accents. Any dancer who wants to express all the accents in this song will certainly put their creativity to a test.