Textures and counterpoint

The word texture in music refers to how many melodies or rhythms are being played simultaneously. There are 4 main musical textures:

• Monophony
• Polyphony
• Homophony
• Heterophony

A monophonic piece of music has only one melody line. It may be accompanied by unpitched rhythm, such as drums, but the melody must not have harmony or melodic counterpoint, although may have other instruments playing the same thing. An example of a monophonic piece of music with contrapuntal devices is "Leo" by John Coltrane. His saxophone melody is the main focus of the piece throughout the whole piece. The drums played can be considered as contrapuntal to this melody because they provide a rhythmic accompaniment.

The word polyphonic refers to a piece or a section of music that includes two or more independent melodies that weave in and out of each other. None one of these melodies are considered to be more important than the others which means that none stand out above the rest. An example of a polyphonic piece of music is "Little Fugue in G Minor" by Bach. A fugue is written for its counterpoint. This piece begins briefly by establishing a monophonic melody but develops soon after by introducing separate melodies that are all as important as each other.

Homophonic music is the most common texture within modern music. It can be defined as one main melodic line that stands above the rest but is accompanied by other, less important melodies. Songs that include vocals and guitar riffs, for example, are usually homophonic. An example of this being Led Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times." Most of the piece is homophonic but in order to explain it properly I'll talk about a short section. From 0:13 to 0:18 a guitar riff can be heard behind the vocals. The vocal melody is the melody that the ear is drawn to. This may be because humans naturally concentrate on vocals in music but the song has been recorded to emphasise it anyway. This guitar riff is interesting enough in its own way but it is repeated multiple times and can therefore be considered as a harmonic accompaniment to the vocal line. This vocal line is also accompanied by quieter vocal harmonies to reinforce it.  

Finally, heterophonic music includes one main melody played by instruments. However, these melodies are varied slightly with each instrument so they are not strictly monophonic. This may be achieved by embellishments played by separate instruments or it may in fact be written to sound very slightly different for each instrument.