Textures and Textural Roles

Monophony

Single melodic line without harmony, chords, or secondary parts. Can be performed by soloist or group of musicians singing at unison or octave

Ex. Plainchant, minnesinge, Meistersinger, troubadour music

Homophony

Primary melody supported by additional harmony parts

Ex. Rock, pop, country, jazz

Polyphony

Two or more independent melodic lines play at the same time. They are equally important

Ex. Renaissance and Baroque music, counterpoint, imitative polyphony

Heterophony

Two or more performers play slight variations of the same single melody at the same time

Ex. Mostly in non-western music cultures like east Asia, south Asia, Southeast Asia, and middle east

Equal-voice polyphony

Maintains same thematic material in all indivdual voices

Ex. Canon- same melodic material enters sequentially after a uniform time interval. Fugues, inventions, other imitation forms

Unequal-voice Polyphony

Greater importance is given to one or more melodic lines

Ex. Medieval-era cantus firmus compositions

Primary Melody (PM)

Most prominent musical line in a song

Secondary Melody (SM)

Not most important melod- descant/discernable

Parallel Supporting Melody (PSM)

Single melody that parallels PM

Ex. Harmony with melody

Static Support (SS)

Same note played, pedal tone (can go in/out of consonance)

Harmonic and Rhythmic Support

Needs both harmony and rhythm

Ex. LH waltz pattern (just harmonic-rhythm only changes when harmony needs to change (HS)) (just rhythmic (RS))