Composers bring additional dramatic impact to musical passages by adding the prefix “subito” before a dynamic.

In Italian, Subito means suddenly. When Subito is added before a dynamic indication, it is abbreviated as a lower-case letter “s.”

Commonly, this immediate dynamic fluctuation is followed by the suffix “forzando” which means “forcing.” (Abbreviated as the letter “z”)

Sforzando has a crisp accent at the beginning of the note.