Monophony, homophony, polyphony – or is it all bologna?

If you decide to study how music is constructed, you’ll enter the world of music theory. Music theorists spend all of their time studying the nuts and bolts of music. Think of it this way: In the automotive world, there are mechanics who actually service vehicles and engineers who design and analyze how a car is put together.

Each side may think they’re more important than the other but in reality, both are essential. If mechanics had some engineering knowledge, they would be better mechanics. If engineers spent their days seeing the cars come to the shop, they would see the practical shortcomings of their design and be able to fix those problems in later models. Having knowledge of both makes both professionals better at what they do.

Music is the same way. There are performers and there are theorists. Most classically trained musicians have a large degree of knowledge on both sides. Just like performing, there are a fair amount of questions left up to the person analyzing the music. Let’s look at one.

Monophony? homophony? polyphony? Or is it all bologna?

You know that what makes music unique is the different ways that the tools of the composers are mixed together. Sometimes music is loud, sometimes it’s soft. Sometimes it’s fast, other times it’s slow. Another device used has to do with texture. How much is going on at any given time. The words used to describe these textures are Monophony, homophony, and polyphony.

Here is a beautiful rendering of an example of polyphony:

Monophony doesn’t ignite much controversy. You might know from science class that mono means one and in this case monophony means one voice. When you sing your favorite song in the shower, you’re making monophonic music. (unless you count the sound of the water as a voice) When somebody plays a trumpet on stage without any accompaniment, that’s monophony. Hundreds of years ago when music was chanted in unison, that was often monophonic.

Now the controversy. Homophony and polyphony both have two or more voices happening at the same time. If two musicians played a duet, a theorist may consider it either homophony or polyphony but which is it? The distinction has to do with the importance of the voices. If you’re playing a duet with your friend and you’re singing the melody while they’re playing a bass guitar, that’s homophony because one voice is more important than the other.

Homophony could also be what theorists call rhythmic unison. You and your friend are singing the same song using the same rhythm with the same pitches. No one part is more important than any other because the parts are exactly the same. Think of 10 people singing the national anthem in unison. That would likely be considered homophony.

Polyphony is more than one voice but there’s a lot going on. Think of a symphony that has a wild array of different parts going on with one important right now but a few seconds later, another part becomes important. One way of looking at it is polyphony is two or more voices making complex music while homophony is two or more voices making relatively simple music. Pianists who play the melody with their right hand and chords in the left are playing homophonic music, unless the left hand is also creating a melody to interact with the right hand part.

The Controversy

Can you see where two music theorists might have different opinions when labeling certain types of music? The definition of complex versus simple mean different things to different people and this makes for some lively debates in the music theory world. Some even say “music is music, and all this talk about homophony and polyphony is just bologna!”

Do you want to study how music is constructed? If you do, you might want to be a music theorist but be prepared to have debates just like this.

Here is an article on Wikipedia about polyphony that might shed a little light on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwtPP5nFEmg

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