Polyphony meaning in music

Fig 1: Baroque orchestra, Nuremburg: Ger. Polyphony is a musical texture that features two or more equally prominent melodic lines played at the same time, polyphony meaning in music. Each of these lines can be thought of as a melody in its own right -- one that could be sung, played, or listened to independently of the others.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'polyphony. Send us feedback about these examples. Accessed 2 Mar. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! See Definitions and Examples ». Log In.

Polyphony meaning in music

We explain the basics of polyphony and how it works, with examples from well-known composers. The word polyphony comes from the Greek for 'many sounds', which gives you an instant clue as to how the term is used in relation to music. Polyphony is essentially a term used to describe the simultaneous use of two or more melodies or voices within a composition. This could be anything from a simple canon or round to something much more complex. In one guise or another, polyphony has been a technique used within music compositions for centuries. Although — as styles and trends have changed over time — the exact form it has taken has varied. Polyphonic music was developed throughout the 10 th to 13 th centuries but it really took off during the Renaissance period, when polyphonic compositions started to become much more complex and intricate. Monophony is the opposite of polyphony. While polyphony uses 'many sounds' to create texture within a piece, monophony is characterised by a single melody that isn't accompanied by harmonies - if you remember 'delighting' your parents by blasting out a tune on the recorder or singing nursery rhymes at the top of your lungs as a child, you'll have been giving them a monophonic performance. Many traditional folk songs and medieval chants offer examples of monophonic compositions too. While harmony refers to the chordal consonance within a piece, polyphony refers to the relationship between simultaneous, independent melodies that work together in terms of the piece as a whole. To think of it another way, harmony is concerned with the relationship between multiple complementary notes stacked vertically on a score, while polyphony refers to multiple complementary strands of melody flowing horizontally across a score.

But it is the combination of the different strands, all interacting together, that creates polyphony. The singing of the San peoplelike that of the pygmies, features melodic repetition, yodeling, and counterpoint.

Within the context of the Western musical tradition, the term polyphony is usually used to refer to music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Baroque forms such as fugue , which might be called polyphonic, are usually described instead as contrapuntal. 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. The term polyphony is also sometimes used more broadly, to describe any musical texture that is not monophonic. Such a perspective considers homophony as a sub-type of polyphony. Traditional non-professional polyphony has a wide, if uneven, distribution among the peoples of the world.

We explain the basics of polyphony and how it works, with examples from well-known composers. The word polyphony comes from the Greek for 'many sounds', which gives you an instant clue as to how the term is used in relation to music. Polyphony is essentially a term used to describe the simultaneous use of two or more melodies or voices within a composition. This could be anything from a simple canon or round to something much more complex. In one guise or another, polyphony has been a technique used within music compositions for centuries. Although — as styles and trends have changed over time — the exact form it has taken has varied. Polyphonic music was developed throughout the 10 th to 13 th centuries but it really took off during the Renaissance period, when polyphonic compositions started to become much more complex and intricate. Monophony is the opposite of polyphony. While polyphony uses 'many sounds' to create texture within a piece, monophony is characterised by a single melody that isn't accompanied by harmonies - if you remember 'delighting' your parents by blasting out a tune on the recorder or singing nursery rhymes at the top of your lungs as a child, you'll have been giving them a monophonic performance.

Polyphony meaning in music

Since poly- means "many", polyphonic music has "many voices". In polyphony, each part has its own melody, and they weave together in a web that may become very dense; a famous piece by Thomas Tallis, composed around , has 40 separate voice parts. Polyphony reached its height during the 16th century with Italian madrigals and the sacred music of such composers as Tallis, Palestrina, and Byrd.

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Some of these songs are linked to the cult of the grapevine and many date back to the eighth century. In one guise or another, polyphony has been a technique used within music compositions for centuries. My word lists. The middle part carries the main melody accompanied by a double drone, holding the interval of a fifth around the melody. These changes in texture not only illustrate the use of polyphony for musical contrast, but also effectively depict the sense of the text with its emphasis on flight and its invocation of the churning wheels of time: [Example 3: American fuguing tune Northfield "How long dear Saviour, O how long" ] How long, dear Saviour, O how long Shall this bright hour delay? The word in the example sentence does not match the entry word. Music-cultures in contact: convergences and collisions. The last two sections are both centred around the relation between notation and polyphony and the systems of modal and mensural notation. In Ahmedaja, Ardian; Haid, Gerlinde eds. Post the Definition of polyphony to Facebook Facebook. In terms of Western classical music, it is not strictly polyphonic, due to the drone parts having no melodic role, and can better be described as multipart. Retrieved 7 August

Table of Contents. Polyphony is a term used in music to describe a texture that features two or more equally prominent melodic lines played or sung simultaneously.

The singing of the San people , like that of the pygmies, features melodic repetition, yodeling, and counterpoint. We explain the basics of polyphony and how it works, with examples from well-known composers. English—German German—English. Sugarman, , ISBN , p. Each of these lines can be thought of as a melody in its own right -- one that could be sung, played, or listened to independently of the others. Musical textures. Chechen and Ingush polyphony is based on a drone and is mostly three-part, unlike most other north Caucasian traditions' two-part polyphony. The songs traditionally pervaded all areas of everyday life, ranging from work in the fields the Naduri, which incorporates the sounds of physical effort into the music to songs to curing of illnesses and to Christmas Carols Alilo. Wesleyan University. Follow us. From the Cambridge English Corpus. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English.