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`heterophony (music) -- Encyclopedia Britannica
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`heterophony, in music, texture resulting from simultaneous performances of melodic variants of the
`same tune, typical of Middle Eastern practices as well as of a vast array of folk music. Balkan Slavic epic
`singers, for example, accompany themselves heterophonically on the gus/e (fiddle). In Persian art music,
`instrumentalists are expected to vary the singers' improvised lines. A complex heterophony, with
`different types of variation assigned to different instruments, characterizes the gamelan (tuned
`percussion orchestra) music of Indonesia . Medieval European monophonic song (unharmonized
`melody), too, appears to have been heterophonically accompanied on many occasions. Heterophony
`also occurs in jazz, especially of the Dixieland and Chicago varieties.
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`9/16/2014
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`homophony (music) -- Encyclopedia Britannica
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`homophony, musical texture based primarily on chords, in contrast to polyphony, which results from
`combinations of relatively independent melodies. In homophony, one part, usually the highest, tends to
`predominate and there is little rhythmic differentiation between the parts, whereas in polyphony,
`rhythmic distinctiveness reinforces melodic autonomy.
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`Homophony does not necessarily suppress counterpoint, however. The "Allegretto" in Beethoven's
`Seventh Symphony offers an excellent example of essentially homo rhythmic counterpoint, since it
`combines two distinct, yet rhythmically identical, melodies. An early genre featuring homophony of this
`sort is the 13th-century conductus.
`
`In the 15th century, Italian secular compositions of popular derivation (e.g., the frottola) were often
`homophonically conceived, as were numerous 16th-century pieces by Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and
`Carlo Gesualdo. Not until the 17th century, however, with such composers as the Italians Arcangelo
`Carelli, Claudio Monteverdi, and Giacomo Carissimi and the German johann Hermann Schein, did
`homophony become dominant in Western music. See also polyphony.
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`9/9/2014
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`monophony (music) -- Encyclopedia Britannica
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`monophony, musical texture made up of a single unaccompanied melodic line. It is a basic element of
`virtually all musical cultures. Byzantine and Gregorian chants (the music of the medieval Eastern and
`Western churches, respectively) constitute the oldest written examples of monophonic repertory. In the
`later Middle Ages in Europe, the primarily secular songs of Proven~al troubadours, French trouveres,
`and German minnesingers and meistersingers kept the tradition alive, although their performances
`often featured improvised accompaniment.
`
`Monophony is not to be confused with monody, a term reserved specifically for the accompanied solo
`song of the early 17th century, the so-called second practice initiated by the Florentine Camerata and
`perfected by the composer Claudio Monteverdi in a conscious effort to break with the vocal polyphony
`of the Renaissance era. Ironically, it was sacred polyphony in its highest manifestations (as by Giovanni
`Pierluigi da Palestrina) that modeled itself aesthetically upon the mono phony of the Roman Catholic
`church with its continuous melodic rhythmic flow untainted by metrical intrusions of secular derivation.
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`9/9/2014
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`polyphony (music) -- Encyclopedia Britannica
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`polyphony, in music, strictly speaking, any music in which two or more tones sound simultaneously (the
`term derives from the Greek word for "many sounds"); thus, even a single interval made up of two
`simultaneous tones or a chord of three simultaneous tones is rudimentarily polyphonic. Usually,
`however, polyphony is associated with counterpoint, the combination of distinct melodic lines. In
`polyphonic music, two or more simultaneous melodic lines are perceived as independent even though
`they are related. In Western music polyphony typically includes a contrapuntal separation of melody
`and bass. A texture is more purely polyphonic, and thus more contrapuntal, when the musical lines are
`rhythmically differentiated. A subcategory of polyphony, called homophony, exists in its purest form
`when all the voices or parts move together in the same rhythm, as in a texture of block chords. These
`terms are by no means mutually exclusive, and composers from the 16th through the 21st centuries
`have commonly varied textures from complex polyphony to rhythmically uniform homophony, even
`within the same piece.
`
`Polyphony, the opposite of mono phony (one voice, such as chant), is the outstanding characteristic that
`differentiates Western art music from the music of all other cultures. The special polyphony of
`ensembles in Asian music includes a type of melodic variation, better described as heterophony, that is
`not truly contrapuntal in the Western sense.
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