
Moreover, there are three types of monophony, polyphony and homophony. Musical texture refers to the combination of melodies, harmonies, rhythms, form, tempo, and timbre in a composition. There are examples to be found in some works of J.S.The main difference between monophony polyphony and homophony is that monophony refers to music with a single melodic line and polyphony refers to music with two or more simultaneous melodic lines, while homophony refers to music in which the main melodic line is supported by an additional musical line(s). Heterophony is somewhat rare in Western Classical music prior to the twentieth century. The technique of combining simultaneously one main melody and its variants is often incorrectly described as heterophony: polyphonic stratification seems a more precise description, since each of the 'layers' is not just a close approximation of the main melody, but also has distinct characteristics and a style of its own Examples

He goes on to suggest the term polyphonic stratification, rather than heterophony: The pattern of pitches occurring at these structural points is the basis of the modal aspect of Thai music. Though these complexes of pitches between structural points may strike the Western listener as arbitrary and inconsequential, the individual lines are highly consequential and logical linearly. The music "breathes" by contracting to one pitch, then expanding to a wide variety of pitches, then contracting again to another structural pitch, and so on throughout. Thus several pitches that often create a highly complex simultaneous structure may occur at any point between the structural pitches. The vertical complex at any given intermediary point follows no set progression the linear adherence to style regulates. Between the structural points where the pitches coincide (unison or octaves) each individual line follows the style idiomatic for the instrument playing it. Individual lines of melody and variants sound in unison or octaves only at specific structural points, and the simultaneity of different pitches does not follow the Western system of organized chord progressions. Thai music in its horizontal complex is made up of a main melody played simultaneously with variants of it which progress in relatively slower and faster rhythmic units. Thai music is nonharmonic, melodic, or linear, and as is the case with all musics of this genre, its fundamental organization is horizontal. ĭavid Morton describes the texture in Thai music: One such example is dissonant heterophony of Dinaric Ganga or "Ojkavica" traditions from southern Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro that is attributed to ancient Illyrian tradition.Īnother remarkably vigorous European tradition of heterophonic music exists, in the form of Outer Hebridean Gaelic psalmody. In European traditions, there are also some examples of heterophony. Heterophony is often a characteristic feature of non- Western traditional musics-for example Ottoman classical music, Arabic classical music, Japanese Gagaku, the gamelan music of Indonesia, kulintang ensembles of the Philippines, and the traditional music of Thailand. The term was initially introduced into systematic musicology to denote a subcategory of polyphonic music, though is now regarded as a textural category in its own right. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time in multiple voices, each of which plays the melody differently, either in a different rhythm or tempo, or with various embellishments and elaborations. In music, heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line.

For the linguistic meaning, see Heteronym (linguistics). This article is about the musical meaning.
