Texture (music)

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In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague or informal way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. A piece may be described as having a "thick" texture, or a "light" texture, or other terms taken from outside of music (Aaron Copland's more popular pieces are described as having an "open" texture). A piece may be characterized as "rough" or "smooth". The perceived texture of a piece can be affected by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempi, and rhythms used, among other things.

There are more precise terms used in systematic musicology in order to describe the number and the character of the relationships between voices (also known as parts or lines). These terms describe the number of voices:

Monophony is a musical texture with just one voice.
Polyphony is a musical textute with more than one voice.

These terms characterize the individual voices and the relationship between the voices in a polyphonic texture:

Homophony is a polyphonic musical texture in which the parts are similar in character, moving in the same, or nearly the same, rhythm.
Heterophony is a polyphonic musical texture in which the voices are different in character, moving in contrasting rhythms. The voices may play play a single melody with simultaneous variations in that melody, or they may play substantially different melodies.

Although in music instruction certain styles or repertoires of music are often identified with one of these descriptions (for example, Gregorian chant is described as monophonic, Bach Chorales are described as homophonic and fugues as polyphonic), the majority of western music, if not all music, can be located as mixtures of or within these extremes.

A simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession.

A more recent type of texture first used by György Ligeti is micropolyphony. Other textures include homorhythmic, polythematic, polyrhythmic, onomatopoeic, compound, and mixed or composite textures (Corozine 2002, p.34).

Source

Corozine, Vince (2002). Arranging Music for the Real World: Classical and Commercial Aspects. ISBN 0786649615.
Boulez, Pierre (1971). Boulez on Music Today. ISBN 0571094201.

External links

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