Musical Texture

What is the Musical Texture?

The musical texture designates the way in which the different voices that intervene in a piece of music are interwoven. I'm Chris Nolasce and now I'm going to talk about the musical texture.

This topic belongs to the list of basic concepts of Music Theory, where you can also find "What Is Music?", A topic that we already discussed. And without further ado, let's start!

The musical texture is the way in which the melodic, rhythmic and harmonic materials are combined in a composition, thus determining the overall sound quality of a piece. Designates the way of relating the diverse voices that intervene in a musical piece (understanding as diverse voices simultaneous melodic lines, be they vocal or instrumental).

The texture is often described in terms of density or thickness, of tessitura, of amplitude between the most severe and acute heights, although as they are more specifically differentiated, it is a function of the number of voices or parts as well as the relationship between These voices (see texture types below) The texture of a piece can be affected by the number and character of the parts that sound at the same time, the timbre of the musical instruments or voices that interpret those parts, the harmony , the tempo and the rhythms used. The texture types, categorized according to the number and the relation of the voices, are analyzed and determined through the labeling of the basic elements of the texture: the primary melody, the secondary melody, the parallel support melody, the support static, harmonic support, rhythmic support and harmonic and rhythmic support.

Types of texture

In music education certain styles or repertoires of music are often identified with one of the descriptions of textures that will be given next. For example, Gregorian chant is described as monodic, Bach chorals are qualified as homophonic and polyphonic leaks. However, a large part of the composers uses more than one type of texture in a single piece of music. A sound simultaneity involves more than one musical texture taking place at the same time and not successively. The main and most common musical textures are monody or monophony, polyphony, homophony, accompanied melody and heterophony.

Monophony or monody

The monophonic texture or monodic texture is formed by a single melodic line without any accompaniment. The parallel support melody often doubles or runs parallel to the primary or base melody, that is, all the voices and instruments involved sing or play the same melody simultaneously, in unison or at a distance of octave. An example is plain singing. Other samples of this type of texture can be heard in bars 17-21 of the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, as well as in the beginning of the opera Mathis der Maler by Paul Hindemith. On the other hand, much of the music of China, Japan, India, Bali or Java is monophonic.

Homophony

In the homophonic texture the various voices move simultaneously with the same rhythmic values ​​but with different notes, forming successive chords.1 In general, the homophonic textures contain only a primary or main melody.7 The harmonic support and the rhythmic support they are often combined, so according to Benward and Saker's terminology, they are labeled as harmonic and rhythmic support.3 When all voices have almost the same rhythm, the homophonic texture can also be described as homorhythmic.7 Examples: motete Taedet animam meam by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Ave verum corpus by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or most of Bach's four-voice choirs.

Polyphony

In the polyphonic texture or contrapuntal texture, multiple melodic voices are played simultaneously that are largely independent or imitative with each other, of similar importance and different rhythms.1 If the voices imitate each other (that is, they sing or play similar melodies but with some delay with respect to others) is imitative polyphony. A strict case of imitative polyphony is the canon. Polyphonic textures may contain several primary or basic melodies.3 It is a characteristic texture of Renaissance music and also frequently appears in the Baroque period. An example is the motet Versa est in luctum by Alonso Lobo.

Accompanying Melody

The accompanying melody, as its name suggests, is formed by a main melodic line that is accompanied by voices and / or instruments that play melodies or secondary chords. In this texture there are multiple voices as in polyphony but only one, the melody, stands out prominently and the others form a base of harmonic accompaniment.

The musical style of the late sixteenth century called monody (linked to the Florentine Camerata) does not properly use the texture here defined as monodic, but the accompanying melody. However, it received that name since, in contrast to the dominant style then, it was a single voice that led the musical discourse on an instrumental accompaniment of chords.

It is the most common texture in Western music. It was a characteristic texture of the classical period that continued to predominate in the music of Romanticism. While in the twentieth century popular music is almost all homophonic and much of jazz too. However, the simultaneous improvisations of some jazz musicians create a true polyphony. "As a sample of this texture, the vast majority of popular music songs (rock, pop ...) or the flamenco repertoire would serve.

Heterophony

The heterophonic texture is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line.The term was coined by Plato. At present the term is used frequently, especially in ethnomusicology, to describe the simultaneous, accidental or deliberate variation of what is identified as the same melody. In heterophony, different ornamental variants of the same melodic line (monodic basis) are played simultaneously, which is why, as in the monody, sometimes it passes through something different than a texture and can also be understood as a way of execute a music that is monodic based. Sometimes simultaneities of varying heights may appear, which does not yet transform it into a polyphonic plot since they are passages that are given from a single plane shared by all the performers.

Other types

In addition to the previous types that are the most common, there are other kinds of textures not as common as polythematic, polyrhythmic, onomatopoeic, combined as well as mixed or composite textures.

Non-melodic texture

The non-melodic texture is not very frequent and can be found in some compositions especially of contemporary academic music. This texture takes place when in a musical work the harmonic sounds hide or completely exclude the melodic content of the piece. In such a way, that no melodies proper can be distinguished. An example of this texture is the work Ionisation by Edgar Varèse.

Micropolyphony

Micropolyphony is a type of more recent texture, characteristic of the XX century. In the words of David Cope it is "a simultaneity of different lines, rhythms and timbres." The technique was developed by György Ligeti, who explained it this way: "The complex polyphony of individual voices is framed in a harmonic-musical flow , in which the harmonies do not change suddenly, but they turn into others; a discernible interlude combination is gradually becoming blurry, and from this cloudiness it is possible to feel that a new interlude combination is taking shape. " "Micropoliphony resembles clusters, but differs from them in the use that makes lines more dynamic than static."