Polyphony vs Monophony?

Question

I am taking a basic music class as an elective and was given a chart to compare monophony and polyphony. The elements within the chart are: Melody, Accompaniment, Harmony, Rhythm of Words, Dynamics and Texture. I understand the basis of both (monophony has a single melody with no accompaniment while polyphony has multiple melodies), but am confused with the rest. I was thinking monophony has no harmony, is homorhythmic, varying dynamics and texture is one sound/simple/basic. I am not sure if there are better ways to describe this for this question. Polyphony, on the other hand, I am struggling with. All I have is multiple/two or more melodies, polyrhythmic and complex/dense texture and am struggling to figure out the rest. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

You're correct that monophonic music only has one melody. As far as accompaniment goes, monophonic music can and does have an accompaniment but all instruments and voices are strictly playing the same melody in unison. The easiest way to see monophony is that everything is playing the same one note at a time (it can be in octaves) like a chant (this type of music is actually known as Gregorian chant). Yes, this style is considered monorhythmic but monorhythmic and monophonic are two separate things, one is describing the rhythm while the other is describing melodic texture. Usually we use these terms to describe a whole song as in its simplicity and rhythmic style. They are two different categories.

So with polyphony, there is more than one melody meaning there can be 2+ melodies happening at the same time. For example, a song has a lead vocal singing one melody, a back up vocal singing another melody, and another instrument playing a motif such as "Havana" by Camilla Cabello (I could've picked a better song but this was the first to pop into my head). In this case you have 3 different melodies going on but, it doesn't necessarily have to be different.It could also be the same melody coming in at different times like a round. The big difference with monophony and polyphony is that with monophony, you have everyone in unison, playing the exact same thing at the same time so you always have only one note playing at a time. Whereas polyphony has more than one note playing at a time. But that's not to get it confused with homophonic music which means there's a harmony underlining the melody. In polyphonic, it's not necessarily underlining one specific melody but rather adding texture and complimenting each other. My best example for this type of dense texture and style would be jazz music.

Answer 2

Hello!

Mono-phony and Polyphony refer only to the PITCH sets of music and have nothing to do with rhythm.

If you're singing by yourself in the shower (no music playing in the background), that's mono-phony (literally translated to "mono" = "one" ; "phono" = "sound")

If you and I are riding in the car and you sing the same thing from the shower, and I sing the exact same thing you're singing (no harmony, just the same melody), that's still mono-phony

However, if I HARMONIZE - if I sing a different set of pitches (notes) that sound like they fit nicely with the song, that's Polyphony (literally translated to "poly" = "multiple" ; "phono" = "sound")

In music history, this is commonly noted when the Catholic church in the mid-1300's went from CHANT (everyone sings the same thing together, with no instrumental accompaniment: monophonic music) to Polyphonic compositions (multiple vocal parts with ornate accompaniment)