Fundamentals
21 Texture
Samuel Brady and Mark Gotham
Key Takeaways
- Musical texture is the density of and interaction between a work’s different voices.
- Monophony is characterized by an unaccompanied melodic line.
- Heterophony is characterized by multiple variants of a single melodic line heard simultaneously.
- Homophony is characterized by multiple voices harmonically moving together at the same pace.
- Polyphony is characterized by multiple voices with separate melodic lines and rhythms.
- Most music does not conform to a single texture; rather, it can move between them.
Texture is an important (and sometimes overlooked) aspect of music. There are four commonly used textures in music: monophony, heterophony, homophony, and polyphony. It is important to note that this is not an exhaustive list of musical textures, but these are the most common textural categories used by musicologists and music theorists.
Monophony
A monophonic texture is characterized by a single, unaccompanied melodic line of music. Monophony utilizes only a single instrument or voice, making it the simplest and most exposed of all musical textures. The first movement of “Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major” (1717) by Johann Sebastian Bach is an example of a monophonic texture:
https://open.spotify.com/track/17i5jLpzndlQhbS4SrTd0B?si=ecfedf54fade4b75
Notice how the solo cello line is the only voice in this work. Now let’s listen to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” (1955) by Pete Seeger:
Note that Seeger’s voice is the only musical line; therefore, this work is a second example of monophony.
Heterophony
A heterophonic texture is characterized by multiple variations of the same melodic line which are heard simultaneously across different voices. These variations can range from small embellishing tones to longer runs in a single voice, as long as the melodic material stays relatively constant.
Listen to “Ana Hasreti,” (2001) by Göskel Baktagir, an example of Turkish classical music:
Notice how the winds embellish the melody presented by the plucked strings. While the voices play different embellishments, they present essentially the same melodic material.
Now listen to “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” (1978) by the Chieftains (beginning at 0:50), and notice the slight variation between the melodic lines of the fiddle (violin) and the flute:
This slight variation between the violin and flute presents a second example of heterophony.
Homophony
A homophonic texture is characterized by having multiple voices moving together harmonically at the same pace. This is the texture that we most often hear in the music of the past century. Many times, this takes the form of having a single melody that predominates, while other voices are used to fill out the harmonies. Homophony is sometimes further divided into two subcategories, homorhythm and melody and accompaniment.
Homorhythm
Homorhythm is a type of homophonic texture in which all voices move in an extremely similar or completely uniso