Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... Look up Melody in Wiktionary, the free dictionary In music, a melody is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord. ... The word voice can mean: The human voice. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... In music and music theory, a chord (from the middle English cord, short for accord) is three or more different notes or pitches sounding simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, over a period of time. ... Homophony is music in which the top line has a dominant melody, and all the voices accompany it with chords in the same rhythm. ...

The term is usually used in reference to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance: Baroque forms such as the fugue which might be called polyphonic are usually described instead as contrapuntal. Also, as opposed to the species terminology of counterpoint, polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch"/"point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another (van der Werf, 1997). In all cases the conception was likely what Margaret Bent (1999) calls "dyadic counterpoint", with each part being written generally against one other part, with all parts modified if needed in the end. This point-against-point conception is opposed to "successive composition", where voices were written in an order with each new voice fitting into the whole so far constructed, which was previously assumed. A musician plays the vielle in a 14th century medieval manuscript. ... Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1450 to 1600. ... Baroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. ... In music, a fugue is a type of piece written in counterpoint for several independent musical voices. ... Counterpoint is a very general feature of music (especially prominent in much Western music) whereby two or more melodic strands occur simultaneously – in separate voices, either literally or metaphorically (if the music is instrumental). ... In music, melisma is the technique of setting several notes to a single syllable of text. ...

Two treatises, both dating from c. 900, are usually considered the oldest surviving part-music though they are note-against-note, voices move mostly in parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths, and they were not intended to be performed. The 'Winchester Tropers', from c. 1000, are the oldest surviving example of practical rather than pedagogical polyphony, though intervals, pitch levels, and durations are often not indicated. (van der Werf, 1997)

The oldest surviving piece of six-part music is the English rota Sumer is icumen in (ca. 1240). (Albright, 2004) A rota is a type of sung round of the 13th and 14th centuries, probably only in England. ... Sumer Is Icumen In is a traditional English round, and possibly the oldest such example of counterpoint in existence. ...

Incipient polyphony (previously primitive polyphony) includes antiphony and Call and response (music), drones, and parallel intervals. This article is about the musical term. ... In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first. ... In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout much or all of a piece, sustained or repeated, and most often establishing a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built. ...

Modern usage

In a contemporary usage which applies specifically to electronic musical instruments, the word is often used simply to mean more than one note sounding simultaneously. Hence, a polyphonic synthesiser is one capable of playing more than one note at a time. Such an instrument capable of playing, say, 16 notes at once is said to have 16 voice polyphony. Another common example of this usage is polyphonic ringtones, which are a feature of many new mobile phones. The term synthesiser is also used to mean frequency synthesiser, an electronic system found in communications. ... A polyphonic ringtone is one that makes use of polyphony. ...

See also

• Micropolyphony

Micropolyphony is a type of 20th century musical texture involving the use of sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly over time. ...

Sources

• Hendrik van der Werf (1997). "Early Western polyphony", Companion to Medieval & Renaissance Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198165404.
• Margaret Bent (1999). "The Grammar of Early Music: Preconditions for Analysis", Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing. ISBN 0815323883.
• Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226012670.

External link

• Thirteenth-Century Polyphony