What is texture?Simply put, texture is a way of describing how many layers apiece of music has. Simply put, texture can be thick or thin. A Thick texturehas lots of layers and a thin texture only has a few.
A good way to think of texture is like a sandwich. Does my sandwich only have a few fillings or loads?In music we have different names for certain textures.
Monophonic:This is when there is only one line of music being played. Only one sound can be heard
Polyphonic:This is where more than one melody line is played at the same time. However, these melody lines must be independent of each other and should be able to be coherent if played separately.
Homophonic :(also known as chordal)A good example to explain this is chords. With chords all of the notes are the same length, but the pitches are different. The two different parts are ‘sounding together’ but are not the same.
UnisonThis is when one musical idea is played but by more than one person at the same time.
Heterophonic:This means ‘one sound’. It is similar to unison in the way that the same melody is played, however here one of the players can decorate their part with different ornamentation.
Antiphonal:This is when two groups sing the same material but don’t sing at the same time. They sing one after another. It’s quite like a bit of a battle between the musicians!