While these simple words sometimes can sum up the texture of a musical piece, there are more complex and specific words that describe the types of textures. The “open” texture is when there’s an extremely huge gap between the highest and lowest note in a piece of music, while the “closed” texture is the exact opposite. If someone describes the texture of a song as “thin,” that means there aren’t many instruments being played, and not a lot of melodies and harmonies.Īs opposed to “thick” texture, where there are a lot of instruments used and thus, many layers, melodies, and harmonies. Thin, thick, open, closed, and even tight, are just a few words often used to describe musical texture. There are many words used to describe texture in music. If one of those elements is slightly changed (say you increased the tempo), the entire picture, or texture, of the piece automatically changes as well. Once you put all the pieces together, it makes up the “picture” or the musical texture. Each puzzle piece is one of those elements. These combined layers, along with musical form, timbre, and tempo make up the musical texture of the piece. These layers include the harmonies, rhythm, and melodies. Each musical piece is made up of multiple layers. In music, however, it’s defined more in terms of dynamics, rhythm, and range. Texture, in an inanimate object, is the way said object feels to the touch. Though, this is just barely scraping the surface. Texture in music is basically how the sound is organized and how complex it is. Why Is Musical Texture Important What Is Texture in Music? No relation between the parts at a certain point of the music.5. Note there are some minor, additional decorations on some of the parts, but they mainly follow the same rhythmic pattern. With regards to music without lyrics the principles are just the same, polyphonic music would have multiple melody lines homophonic: multiple parts all moving at the same time. A good example of polyphonic songs would be a 'singing in the round' situation, where each voice has it's own line it is following, and not the same melody, simultaneously. It seems for a piece of music to be considered polyphonic, the lyrics usually need to be independent for each "voice", but this is not a definition I've read anywhere and it wouldn't fit for a piece of music that is without lyrics.ĭepends what you mean by 'independent'. As you mention, Alto and Tenor vocal parts often move around to create resolutions within held notes - however if the the parts mainly work with the melody line, this wouldn't be considered polyphonic. What's important to remember is that there should be a degree of flexibility in these definitions, pieces are often 'predominantly homophonic', or have 'polyphonic sections' - a small amount of different movement may mean a piece isn't homophonic in the strictest sense, but would often be referred to as such, if that was the overriding characteristic. Polyphony is when there is multiple melody lines at the same time, interacting with each other. Homophony is the concept of a single 'line' as such, potentially split across several parts, but all moving at the same time - parts mainly follow the same rhythm.
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