# Sforzando (Italian, "forcing")

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/sforzando
Also known as: sfz, sf, sforzato

**Sforzando, written sfz or sf, is an instruction to give a single note a sudden strong accent, louder than the surrounding dynamic and then immediately back to it.**

It is relative, not absolute. A sforzando inside a pianissimo passage is not loud in any general sense, it is loud relative to what surrounds it, and playing it at forte would wreck the phrase. Reading the prevailing dynamic before executing the accent is the whole skill.

On a string instrument the accent is made by bow speed and weight at the start of the stroke, sometimes with the bow pre-set into the string so the attack has a defined edge. Where the sforzando must repeat, the arm needs to release between accents or the sound clenches.

Related markings differ in shape: fp is loud then immediately soft, rfz reinforces a whole group rather than one note, and a simple accent mark asks for less than a sforzando does.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/sforzando