Accented Passing Tone
A passing tone on a strong beat, with appoggiatura-like tension
Related
An accented passing tone is a passing tone on a strong beat: it still connects two chord tones by step, but because it occupies the beat it sounds more like an appoggiatura, with a touch of dissonant tension.
It differs from an unaccented passing tone: the unaccented one fills, the accented one stresses. The usual mistake is to assume passing tones always fall on weak beats — the accented passing tone is a common expressive device in Classical and Romantic melody; change the position and the function changes.
Read deeper → non-chord tone
Sources
- 强拍经过音的用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Non-chord tone"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.