Texture (music) - Wikipedia

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Texture (music)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In music, texture is how the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are
combined in a composition, thus determining the overall quality of the sound in a
piece. Texture is often described in regard to the density, or thickness, and range,
or width, between lowest and highest pitches, in relative terms as well as more
Introduction to Sousa's "Washington Post
specifically distinguished according to the number of voices, or parts, and the
March," mm. 17 Play features octave
relationship between these voices (see Common types below). For example, a
doubling (Benward & Saker 2003, p. 133) and
thick texture contains many 'layers' of instruments. One of these layers could be a
a homorhythmic texture.
string section, or another brass. The thickness also is changed by the amount and
the richness of the instruments playing the piece. The thickness varies from light
to thick. A piece's texture may be changed by the number and character of parts playing at once, the timbre of the instruments or
voices playing these parts and the harmony, tempo, and rhythms used (Benward & Saker 2003,). The types categorized by
number and relationship of parts are analyzed and determined through the labeling of primary textural elements: primary melody
(PM), secondary melody (SM), parallel supporting melody (PSM), static support (SS), harmonic support (HS), rhythmic support
(RS), and harmonic and rhythmic support (HRS) (Isaac & Russell 2003, p. 136).

Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6

Common types
Additional types
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Common types
In musical terms, particularly in the fields of music history and music analysis, some common terms for different types of texture
are:

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Type

Monophonic

Biphonic

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Description
Monophonic texture includes a
single melodic line with no
accompaniment. (Benward &
Saker 2003, p. 136). PSMs
often double or parallel the PM
they support (Benward &
Saker 2003, p. 137).

Two distinct lines, the lower

sustaining a drone (constant
pitch) while the other line
creates a more elaborate
melody above it. Pedal tones or
ostinati would be an example
of a SS (Benward & Saker
2003, p. 137).

Multiple melodic voices which

are to a considerable extent
independent from or in
imitation with one another.
Characteristic texture of the
Polyphonic or
Renaissance music, also
Counterpoint
prevalent during the Baroque
or
period (Benward & Saker
Contrapuntal
2003, pp. 1999,199,158,137,
136,129,110,90,59,35,11,9,0)).
Polyphonic textures may
contain several PMs (Benward
& Saker 2003, p. 137).

Homophonic

The most common texture in

Western music: melody and
accompaniment. 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. Characteristic
texture of the Classical period
and continued to predominate
in Romantic music while in the
20th century, "popular music is
nearly all homophonic," and,

Visual

Audio
Pop Goes the Weasel
Tune for Pop Goes the Weasel

"Pop Goes the Weasel" melody

(Kliewer 1975, pp. 270301).

Pedal tone in Bach's Prelude no. 6 in

D Minor, BWV 851, from The Well
Tempered Clavier, Book I, mm. 12.
All pedal tone notes are consonant
except for the last three of the first
measure (Benward & Saker 2003,
p. 99).

Problems playing this file? See

media help.

Pedal tone Bach

File:Pedal tone Bach - BWV
851, m.1-2.mid
Pedal tone in Bach's Prelude
no. 6 in D Minor, BWV 851,
from The Well Tempered
Clavier, Book I, mm. 12.
Problems playing this file? See
media help.

Book 1 - Fugue No. 21 in B-flat

major (BWV 866)
performed on a Flemish
harpsichord by Martha Goldstein
A bar from J.S. Bach's "Fugue No.17
in A flat", BWV 862, from Das
Wohltemperirte Clavier (Part I), a
famous example of contrapuntal
polyphony. Play

Problems playing this file? See

media help.

Tallis' "If ye love me"

Homophony in Tallis' "If ye love me,"

composed in 1549. The voices move
together using the same rhythm, and
the relationship between them creates
chords: the excerpt begins and ends
with an F major triad.

Beginning of Tallis' "If ye love

me," notated above.
Problems playing this file? See
media help.

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"much of jazz is also" though,

"the simultaneous
improvisations of some jazz
musicians creates a true
polyphony" (Benward & Saker
2003, p. 136). Homophonic
textures usually contain only
one PM (Benward & Saker
2003, p. 137). HS and RS are
often combined, thus labeled
HRS (Benward & Saker 2003,
p. 137).
Multiple voices with similar
rhythmic material in all parts.
Also known as "chordal". May
Homorhythmic
see above
be considered a condition of
homophony or distinguished
from it.
Heterophonic

Two or more voices

simultaneously performing
variations of the same melody.

Many classical pieces feature different kinds of texture within a short space of time. An example is the Scherzo from Schuberts
piano sonata in B major. The first four bars are monophonic, with both hands performing the same melody an octave apart:

Schubert Piano Sonata in B major scherzo bars 1-4 Listen

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGGSMAb1SIQ&
t=14m50s)

Bars 5-9 are homophonic, with all voices coinciding rhythmically:

Schubert Piano Sonata in B scherzo bars 5-10

Bars 11-20 are polyphonic. There are three parts, the top two moving in parallel (interval of a tenth). The lowest part imitates the
rhythm of the upper two at the distance of three beats. The passage climaxes abruptly with a bars silence:

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Schubert Piano Sonata in B major Scherzo bars 11-20

After the silence, the polyphonic texture expands from three to four independent parts moving simultaneously in bars 21-4. The
upper two parts are imitative, the lowest part consists of a repeated note (pedal point) and the remaining part weaves an
independent melodic line:

Schubert Piano Sonata in B majore Scherzo bars 21-24

The final four bars revert to homophony, bringing the section to a close;

Schubert Sonata in B major Scherzo bars 25-28

Additional types
Although in music instruction certain styles or repertoires of music are often identified with one of these descriptions this is
basically added music. (for example, Gregorian chant is described as monophonic, Bach Chorales are described as homophonic
and fugues as polyphonic), many composers use more than one type of texture in the same piece of music.
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 Gyrgy Ligeti is micropolyphony. Other textures include polythematic, polyrhythmic,
onomatopoeic, compound, and mixed or composite textures (Corozine 2002, p. 34).

See also
Style bris

References
Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Nadine Saker (2003). Music: In Theory and Practice, seventh edition, vol. 1. Boston:

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McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.

Corozine, Vince (2002). Arranging Music for the Real World: Classical and Commercial Aspects. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay.
ISBN 0-7866-4961-5. OCLC 50470629.
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.
Isaac, and Russell (2003)..
Kliewer, Vernon (1975). "Melody: Linear Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music". In Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music,
edited by Gary Wittlich, pp. 270301. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-049346-5.
Kokoras, Panayiotis (2005). Towards a Holophonic Musical Texture (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/i/icmc
/bbp2372.2005.188?rgn=main;view=fulltext). In Proceedings of the ICMC2005 International Computer Music
Conference,. Barcelona: International Computer Music Conference.

Further reading
Anon.: "Monophony", Grove Music Online (http://www.grovemusic.com), edited bymDeane Root (accessed 1 August
2015) (subscription required).
Copland, Aaron. (1957). What to Listen for in Music, revised edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.
Frobenius, Wolf, Peter Cooke, Caroline Bithell, and Izaly Zemtsovsky: "Polyphony', Grove Music Online
(http://www.grovemusic.com). edited by Deane Root (accessed 1 August 2015) (subscription required).
Hyer, Brian: "Homophony", Grove Music Online (http://www.grovemusic.com), edited by Deane Root (accessed 1 August
2015) (subscription required).
Mailman, Joshua B. 2014. "Trajectory, Material, Process, and Flow in Robert Morriss String Quartet Arc
(http://www.academia.edu/9495273/Trajectory_Material_Process_and_Flow_in_Robert_Morriss_String_Quartet_Arc)".
Perspectives of New Music 52, no. 2: 24983.

External links
A Guide to Musical Texture with multimedia (http://www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/liske/musicalelements
/textureframes.html)
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Categories: Musical texture
This page was last modified on 6 December 2016, at 16:46.
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