You may have heard the term polyphony before and might have wondered what it meant. Polyphony is intrinsic to almost all the music we listen to today but it wasn’t always that way. So, what does this term mean and why is it important?
There was a time when the only written music was monophonic, which means “one note at a time.” The first written music was called Gregorian Chant (or “plainsong”). This music was simply liturgical text that was sung with embellishments. There was only one line of music at a time and this is the only written music we have (and the very first written music) from the 9th and 10th centuries.
Eventually music evolved into something called organum, which had two lines – typically in parallel 4ths that would embellish the melody.
As music continued to develop more complexity, we began to have many lines of music that would play simultaneously. Interweaving of musical lines is referred to as counterpoint. Polyphony simply refers to having more than one note at a time. Virtually all music we listen to today is polyphonic.
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