Texture
Texture is the term used that refers to the blending of melodic lines
and various sounds occurring simultaneously in a piece of music.
The quality of texture is determined by the interactions, interrelationships,
relative projections and material in the musical lines and/or other parts
that occur.
One of the quantitative aspects of texture, density, is defined as the
number of simultaneous events as well as the closeness of events within
a given space. Tone color is related, in that two simultaneous
pitches playing a major second apart will have varying degrees of intensity
depending on their individual tone colors and how they combine (two clarinets
vs. one clarinet and one violin). Dynamic levels will also
affect this interrelationship.
An integral aspect of harmony is the spacing between the notes in a
chord or the voices in counterpoint. This spacing is referred to
as close and open positions. The close position
is defined as the upper voices have no space between them to insert other
chord tones. The distance between the lowest voice and the next voice
up is not considered as long as the distance is not too great.
The chord is in open position if there is enough space between two adjacent
upper voices to insert another chord tone.
Unless otherwise desired, the usual spacing between upper voices is
best balanced by any two adjacent voices being separated by no more than
an octave.
There are three qualitative types of texture: monophonic, homophonic,
and polyphonic.
Monophonic music is music of the simplest type, being a single
line of harmonically unaccompanied melody. A good example
of monophonic music is Gregorian Chant. Single-line musical works
like this often suggest an implied harmony, due to the intervals been notes
in the melodies. More recently, monophony has been used for textural
variety, producing the clearest of textures, and presenting no listening
problems due to its simplicity.
Homophonic texture is only slightly more complex than monophonic
texture, consisting of a main melodic line and some type of chordal accompaniment.
Later on, simple chordal accompaniments developed into arpeggios, which
broke the chords up into more elaborate passages, but still retaining the
melody-accompaniment relationship.
Polyphonic music makes greater demands on the listener, due
to the independent melodies of each of the voices, which also form harmonies
as they progress together simultaneously. There is a vertical
as well as a horizontal relationship between the voices.
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