Musical homophony: meaning and examples

Music is an art and science that has been developing since the human being found the curiosity to play with sound. With its evolution, people who have embarked on this journey have spent their time finding relationships, studying and looking for new ways to give meaning or expression to this phenomenon. Over time, formulas have been found that work and have become part of the heritage cultural and knowledge of humanity, methods with which we can all enjoy and marvel us.

In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about meaning and examples of lto musical homophony and we will explain this technique with origins as far back as ancient Greece and which has left a very important legacy to music.

Index

1. What is musical homophony: easy meaning
2. Origin and development of homophony
3. Characteristics and operation of homophony
4. Examples of musical homophony

Homophony is a technique used in music where

The word itself homophony, comes from the Greek homo and phones, which translates to "equal sounds." The fact of being called that is rather not precisely because the notes must be the same, but because their movement is similar, creating parallel sounds. This and the homophony itself, because the movements of the notes happen in parallel, is also called homorhythmic.

Homophony originates from Ancient Greece, where initially the music used to interpret a single melody but with several voices, the first step was to distance the voices by an octave of difference. Then we have the Middle Ages, where it is known that they occurred homophonic works thanks to a limited number of music notation registers. Despite this, it is known that monophony continued to occur frequently, thanks to the fact that there are more manuscripts written with this technique.

Although there is a record of homophonic works during the Renaissance, its greatest development occurred during the Baroque period, where the technique of "Continuous basso" (continuous bass) was very frequent, supporting the idea of ​​vertical harmony. This technique was crucial to lay the foundations of homophony and establish the roles of the melodic lines, at that time used in four-part choral arrangements: soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

From that point on, homophony exists as a current musical technique. Today we can find homophony even in popular music genres where there is a chord progression on which the musicians sing a main melody or improvise.

The main characteristic of homophony is the parallel movement of the notes, which usually have the same duration. Due to this, we must focus from the vertical point of view, that is, in the harmonic relationship of notes by pitch.

In a composition for four voices, like the ones we mentioned before (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) the role depends on the height of the note, the bass being the one that usually provides the root note of the chord and the top note is usually the one that presents the melody of the chord. composition.

The rest of the notes present a harmonic support that, together, will indicate each chord that happens depending on its relationship, as the piece progresses.

These are some plays that you can listen to to try to understand aurally the concept and operation of homophony.

• "If ye love me" - Thomas Tllis (1549)
• Chorale of the Cantata No.4 - Johan Sebastian Bach
• Alles ist an Gottes Segen, Coral BWV 263 - Johan Sebastian Bach
• Ave Verum Corpus - Wolgang Amadeus Mozart
• Nocturnal Op.62 No.2 - Frederic Chopin
• Graduation March "Pomp and Circumstance No.1" - Edward Elgar
• March of the bullfighters, Opera Carmen - Georges Bizet
• Granada, No.1 of the Spanish suite for guitar - Isaac Albeniz
• Maple Leaf Rag - Scott Joplin
• The Entertainer - Scott Joplin
• The Opening of Handel's Messiah - Georg Frederic Händel

Now that you know more about this topic, we recommend that you dedicate yourself to listening to more works with homophony to complement your knowledge. If you are even more curious, you may be interested in learning about other techniques such as polyphony, of which we also have articles.

We hope that now you have a better idea of ​​the subject with this article on musical homophony: meaning and examples.

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