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Texture is one of the basic elements of music. People use texture to describe the amount of rhythms played at a specific time. In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, texture also means the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices
Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
 in the music and by the relationship between these voices (see types of texture below). A piece's texture may be further described using terms such as "thick" and "light", "rough" or "smooth".






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Texture is one of the basic elements of music. People use texture to describe the amount of rhythms played at a specific time. In music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
, texture also means the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices
Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
 in the music and by the relationship between these voices (see types of texture below). A piece's texture may be further described using terms such as "thick" and "light", "rough" or "smooth". The perceived texture of a piece can be affected by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre
Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices or musical instruments....
 of the instruments or voices playing these parts and the harmony
Harmony

In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously, and chord s, actual or implied, in music. The word is related to the word "harmonic" which implies related wavelengths of waves....
, tempo
Tempo

In musical terminology, 'tempo' is the speed or pace of a given musical piece. It is an extremely crucial element of composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece....
, and rhythm
Rhythm

Rhythm is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events....
s used.

Types of texture

In musicology, particularly in the fields of music history
Music history

The field of music history, sometimes called historical musicology, is the highly diverse subfield of the broader discipline of musicology that studies the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time....
 and music analysis, some common terms for different types of texture are:

  • Monophonic
    Monophony

    In music, monophony is the simplest of texture , consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave ....
one melodic voice without harmonic accompaniment.
  • Polyphonic
multiple melodic voices which are to a considerable extent independent from one another.
  • Homophonic
multiple voices of which one, the melody, stands out prominently and the others form a background of harmonic accompaniment. If all the parts have much the same rhythm, the homophonic texture can also be described as homorhythmic
Homorhythm

In music, homorhythm is a texture where there is a "sameness of rhythm in all parts" or "very similar rhythm" as would be used in simple hymn or chorale settings ....
.
  • Heterophonic
two or more voices simultaneously performing variations of the same melody


Although in music instruction certain styles or repertoires of music are often identified with one of these descriptions (for example, Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, a form of monophony liturgy chant in Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services....
 is described as monophonic, Bach Chorale
Chorale

A chorale was originally a hymn of the Lutheran church sung by the entire congregation. In casual modern usage, the term also includes classical settings of such hymns and works of a similar character....
s are described as homophonic and fugue
Fugue

In music, a fugue is a type of counterpoint composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of melody, normally referred to as "voices"....
s as polyphonic), many composers use more than one type of texture in the same piece of music.

A simultaneity (music)
Simultaneity (music)

In music, a simultaneity is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession. This first appeared in the music of Charles Ives, and is common in the music of Conlon Nancarrow and others....
 is more than one complete musical texture occurring at the same time, rather than in succession
Succession

Succession is the act or process of following in order or sequence. .Succession may further refer to, within the context of "order" and "sequence":...
.

A more recent type of texture first used by György Ligeti
György Ligeti

Gy?rgy S?ndor Ligeti was a composer, born in a Hungarian History of the Jews in Romania family in Transylvania, Romania. He briefly lived in Hungary before later becoming an Austrian citizen....
 is micropolyphony
Micropolyphony

Micropolyphony is a type of 20th century musical texture involving the use of sustained Consonance and dissonance chord s that shift slowly over time....
. Other textures include polythematic, polyrhythmic, onomatopoeic, compound, and mixed or composite textures (Corozine 2002, p.34).

Sources

  • Copland, Aaron. What to Listen for in Music. Published by Signet Classic, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY.*Hanning, Barbara Russano, Concise History of Western Music, based on Donald Jay Grout & Claudia V. Palisca's A History of Western Music, Fifth Edition. Published by W. W. Norton & Company, New York, Copyright 1998. ISBN 0-393-97168-6.


Further reading

  • Hyer, Brian: 'Homophony', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 24 September 2006),
  • Frobenius, Wolf: 'Polyphony', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 24 September 2006),
  • 'Monophony', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 24 September 2006),


External links