WHAT IS TEXTURE MUSIC?

When you think of a piece of fabric, what comes to mind in terms of its texture? How thick or thin it is? How many layers? How smooth or rough it is? Or think of sandy or pebbled beaches, a brick wall, or a flower’s petals and leaves. Many of those ideas can be applied to types of texture in music too. Whether you’re using informal terms, such as ‘open’ or ‘closed’ texture, or more formal ones, such as ‘monophonic’ or ‘polyphonic’, musical textures can be unfamiliar. Our overview will help you to both recognise and appreciate music textures.

How to Describe Texture

‘Texture’, when you’re talking about music, is basically a way to describe how it – or the sound – is organised. Think of it as how many layers a piece of music has, or which ‘building blocks’ it’s constructed from. And just like food, clothes or painting, many different elements can influence musical texture – and thus how it affects you and makes you feel.

These include things like tempo, melody, harmony, rhythm and timbre. Timbre is what distinguishes the different instruments or voices playing or singing the same frequency or musical pitch. E.g. if you’ve got a guitar and a violin that are both playing a middle C, their distinct timbres is what means you can tell them apart.

In simple terms, a piece of music can be described as having a ‘thick’ texture if there are lots of layers of instruments, or several melodies and harmonies being played simultaneously. Think of symphonic orchestral pieces, where there’s a string and woodwind section, plus a variety of percussion instruments – there might be a piano or organ added to the mix as well.

As you’d expect, ‘thin’ textured music has just a few instruments, or a couple of melodies and harmonies.

The most common terms when you’re describing music texture refer to how many voices or parts a piece of music has – and how the melodic part relates to the harmonic parts. In short, it’s how sound is organised. Other ways to describe texture include the ‘density’ of the music – how many notes are being played at once; its colour or timbre, delivered through individual instruments or voices and the music’s breadth – whether the range of pitches is broad or tightly grouped together.

The Different Types of Texture

There are four main types of music textures:

• Monophonic
• Polyphonic
• Homophonic
• Heterophonic

Monophonic Texture

A piece of music that just has a single line is a monophonic texture – such as unaccompanied folk melodies, or Byzantine and Gregorian chants. I.e., there’s just one sound going on. This video shows you examples of violin, orchestral and different sorts of vocal monophony:

Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G major is a great classical example of monophonic music.

Want to feel a bit more fancy when you’re singing to yourself in the shower? Think of yourself as creating a monophonic music texture instead!

Polyphonic Texture

If you’re building chords, with six, seven or eight sounds going at the same time, you’re creating polyphonic music. It was developed during the late Middle Ages – created simply by having musicians play or sing two different songs simultaneously – and became the dominant musical texture during the Renaissance.

This is a texture that consists of two or more simultaneous melodic lines, with parts that weave in and out of each other. Bach is a composer known for not only polyphonic solo instrument works, but also using the texture when composing for orchestra – for example, his Brandenburg Concertos.

For a really simple way of remembering these terms, think of spaghetti. One strand of spaghetti (or a single melody) is monophonic. Many strands interweaving with each other – like spaghetti on a plate – is polyphonic.

Polyphonic music is also sometimes called contrapuntal music and may have an element of imitation, where one voice or instrument copies what’s just been played by another – think of a ‘round’ like ‘London’s Burning’.

Contrapuntal or counterpoint is most commonly found in Baroque music, but, as in the video above, it’s also been used by everyone from the Beach Boys to Muse and Blur. You can also see it in musicals, when two characters are singing at the same time, each from their own perspective – as in ‘One Day More’ from Les Misérables. Each character sings a verse, then as the song develops, the different characters’ lines overlap.

Homophonic Texture

This is the most common type of texture – you’ll find it everywhere from orchestral music to pop, rock and jazz and film music. The term comes from the Greek words ‘homo’, meaning ‘same’ or ‘similar’ and phonic, meaning ‘sound’ or ‘voice’.

There’s a melody, with chords and harmonies that support it. This ‘fills out’ the music and gives it a richer colour. For example, if you’ve got a rock or pop artist singing a song while playing guitar or piano at the same time, that’s a homophonic texture. A homophonic classical piece could have a violin playing a solo melody line, whilst the rest of the orchestra plays behind.

Watch this video for an explainer of a simple line of melody and accompaniment that demonstrates homophonic texture:

Here’s a great example of a multi-layered homophonic texture that’s just using voice:

There are two main subtypes – homorhythmic and melody-dominated. Homorhythmic texture is characterised by all parts of the melody and harmonies having the exact same rhythm. This can also be called block chord texture – it’s often found in choral music, hymns and barbershop quartets.

Want a classical example? Have a listen to the choral part of Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’:

Melody-dominated texture is any other type of homophony that isn’t block chords. The melody is the main ‘musical idea’ that you’re hearing, and the harmony performs a supporting role. The harmony doesn’t perfectly line up with the melody.

An example of melody-dominated is Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’ – there’s one melody, and harmonies are playing around it. However, the piano’s playing a different rhythm than Adele’s singing, so the texture can’t be homorhythmic.

Heterophonic Texture

Outside of 20^th century classical works, this texture isn’t particularly common in Western music, but it is a feature of East Asian ensemble music. It’s characterised by two or more instruments, each playing a different version of the same melody.

In addition to these four types, there’s also antiphonal texture – this is when there’s more than one group of instruments or voices, usually placed in different parts of a church or concert venue. There’s generally dialogue between the two groups, with melodic ideas passed between them.

Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli used a lot of antiphony, with much of his music written to be performed at St Mark’s church in Venice.

You can also hear heterophony in Bluegrass, Cajun and Zydeco music – listen out for the tune being played by two instruments – say a fiddle and a banjo – at the same time. Each will add their own characteristic embellishments, ornaments and flourishes.

High/Low Texture

A widely-spaced texture would have one part that’s very high, and one that’s very low. This large gap between the notes is sometimes also described as spacious or open-textured. As you’d expect, the opposite of this is a closed or tight texture: all the instruments or singers are playing or singing notes that are very close together.

Thin Texture Music vs Thick Texture Music

A piece of music’s density not only depends on how many instruments are playing, but which instruments you’re using. For example, listen to the difference in the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Scar Tissue’ – when the band play the original, it’s got a heavier-sounding density because of the bass guitar and drums, when you compare the same song performed by a string quartet.

If you just heard this, ‘thin texture’, version of the track in isolation, it might take you a minute to pinpoint what the song is:

This explainer brings all these elements together, which features musical illustrations:

Inspired Music Textures

So, now you know the basics of how to describe texture in music, next time you’re listening to a piece or a song, ask yourself which type of texture is being used? Is it thick or thin, high or low? Which type of ‘phony’ is it based on? And which of these elements change between sections?

As a musician, think about ways you can use texture to improve or vary your compositions. Can your texture be changed by adding or taking away an instrument or a harmony? Maybe you can change the textural density by simply changing the dynamics from loud to soft, or vice versa?

Here are a few top tips on balancing textures:

An appreciation of textures can also be incredibly useful to bear in mind when you’re looking for music for a project by another artist – whether it’s a Hollywood blockbuster trailer that might need to be very dense and layered, giving the viewer the idea that there’s going to be plenty of action and edge-of-your-seat excitement throughout the whole two-hour runtime, or something that’s more sparse and airy, so that the message or product in an ad can take centre stage.

A composer like Hans Zimmer is a master of texture when it comes to his movie soundtracks – from a single, distorted voice at the start of Dune to using layered instruments and working out how to create a ‘futuristic sound’:

To using just three chords to create the sound – and emotion – of Interstellar and then building up the textures to produce an epic soundscape:

Listen to some of our fantastic, original music from our catalogue for more inspiration, from graceful, understated symphonic textures to dark, mysterious and brooding electronic textures and Dame Evelyn Glennie’s eclectic percussion textures.

Looking for musical textures and sound design? We’ve got you covered – explore our Editors’ Toolkit for more. We’ve got new releases every fortnight, together with hundreds of hand-picked playlists to make choosing the perfect track a cinch, whether you’re selecting music yourself, or briefing one of our expert team to help you.