The Developement of Polyphony

Rick Serra Professor Graham symphony History 1 2 October 2012 The Development of Polyphony Polyphony is a practice of medicineal c at oncept that all in all revolutionized music as a whole. The development of polyphony began to take shape around the 11th century. When lecture about polyphony, we are referring to a texture make up of two or more commutative melodic voices, as opposed to music with just angiotensin converting enzyme voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony).Although we have an overall determineing when polyphony came about, some(prenominal) historians are still concealed in speculation and theories. Despite its beginnings we can assume that polyphony existed in one form or another somewhere else before it grew in the West. Some scholars suggest that grow may lie in Greek music, when the technique of improvising on the same melody could be found, alike known as heterophony. Others opinionate that its origins re st in the natural variations in voice placement from one soulfulness to another.This is best described as when two different voices would sing the same melody using the nearly comfortable damps of their ranges, causing a succession of parallel intervals to be produced. It can also be viewed as a result of philosophical assumption on the possibility of synchronized interval performances. In order to understand the earliest stages of its development, we must rely on theoretical treatises. These are the technical descriptions of part render, that have a distinguishing name, organum.Organums can be found in theoretical works by the one- 9th and tenth centuries, but we do not find any signs of the early history or an bail bond to any specific region in them. Conversely, these treatises describe and arrange practices that may well have been general and could be considered a custom, not a novelty. Another theory of when European polyphony came about begins when the argument between the Western and Eastern churches reached a crisis in 1054. When that was taking place, scholars believe polyphony slowly made its way into church music.So instead of monophony or heterophony, we started seeing separate voices sing together, not in unison or octaves but as diverging parts. In the eleventh century, when singers began improvising under the limits of certain rules left field from simple parallel motion to give these parts some independence, a development unique to music history began. This was not a speedy process though, there were no sudden, sharp breaks with the past, these changes came about gradually.Although we precept polyphony develop from the churches, we have good reason to believe that polyphony existed in Europe ache before it was first unmistakably described. Melodic doubling at the third, fourth, or fifth, along with heterophony is found in many cultures and probably existed also in Europe. Unfortunately, no documents of such early European polyphony sur vive. only when the first clear depiction of music for more than one vocal part, written in the ninth century, absolutely refers to a practice already in use, not a new one existence proposed.Passages in an anonymous treatise, Musica enchiriadis and in a dialogue associated with it, Scolica enchiriadis, describe and illustrate two distinct kinds of singing together, both labeled by the name organum. People would sing in parallel fourths sometimes results in a tritone. To evade this undesirable sound, a rule banned the organal voice from going below G or C in these circumstances. Instead, it was expected to stay on one note until it was safe once again to proceed in parallel fourths without meeting another tritone.Under this practice, the organal part became separated from the plainchant and a larger diversity of synchronized intervals came into use, not all of them familiar consonances. This lead to what we now know and understand as todays standard notation and rules for writing polyphony. Works Cited The Beginning of Polyphony. About. com Music Education. N. p. , n. d. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http//musiced. about. com/od/historyofmusic/a/polyphony. htm>. Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay. Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music. New York W. W. Norton &, 2010.Print. polyphonous Development and the Importance of the Polyphonic Era. Music of Yesterday. N. p. , n. d. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <www. musicofyesterday. com/history/general/Polyphonic_Development_and_the_Importance_of_the_Polyphonic_Era. php>. Polyphony. Dictionary. com. Dictionary. com, n. d. Web. 05 Oct. 2012. <http//dictionary. reference. com/browse/polyphony>. 1 . Music of Yesterday 2 . A History of Western Music 3 . A History of Western Music 4 . A History of Western Music 5 . A History of Western Music