Some information about melodic accent?

[Stamped Records]

It's really just an open question for people to discuss what their approach is to melodic accent. It's something I've only gotten around to thinking about lately.

Doing electronic music and studying harmony means for me that melody has come pretty much last in the learning curve as I needed to know how to harmonise the melody and this took a lot of brainpower, for me anyway.

I've played a bit with the starting point of the melody, so having a lead in for the melody to drop on the first beat of the bar and lately I've discovered a really nice flowing effect that I get from having the melody start on the second beat of the bar (with or without a lead-in).

Another one I've done today has the melody on the 3rd beat.....

So I'm just wondering how people approach accents and I can't direct the question to be specific, I'm just really curious to hear thoughts on accenting melodies, either through leaps or through the starting position in terms of rhythm.

Thanks.

[shawshawraw]

In songwriting, there's a term "front-heavy" vs "back-heavy" phrasing. Front-heavy = phrase start occupying the downbeat (could be starting on a pickup). Back-heavy = phrase doesn't start until the dropping of the downbeat. A cool way to tweak the stability of a verse or chorus etc.

[Stamped Records]

In songwriting, there's a term "front-heavy" vs "back-heavy" phrasing. Front-heavy = phrase start occupying the downbeat (could be starting on a pickup). Back-heavy = phrase doesn't start until the dropping of the downbeat. A cool way to tweak the stability of a verse or chorus etc.

Cheers, always good to get the terminology to do more research.

I'm surprised people don't want to talk about melodic accent more than only yourself though, but thanks for that.