John Roeder, "Pulse Streams and Problems of Grouping and Metrical Dissonance in Bartók's 'With Drums and Pipes,'" Music Theory Online 7.1 (2001) | Sidebar | |||
The term "phenomenal accent" is taken from Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983: 17). It arises at timepoints of marked change in any of the perceived properties of sound--duration, loudness, timbre, and pitch. Here are a few examples, taken from the music under consideration.
A timepoint is relatively accented if it initiates a long duration following short durations in a voice, such as the second eighth-beat of m. 30:
(Example IV.1)
A timepoint may also take accent due to sudden increase in loudness (such as on the first beat of m. 23):
(Example IV.2)
or in registral density (such as the four-pitch cluster in m. 32):
(Example IV.3)
or due to a sudden change of register in a voice (such as the left-hand dyad on the down-beat of m. 26):
(Example IV.4)
A peak in the melodic contour may also produce some accent, as on the onset of A4 in m. 29:
(Example IV.5)
Of course, more than one factor may combine to create accent, for example on the downbeat of m. 25, which is accented by loudness, registral density, and contour:
(Example IV.6)