Example of Musical Polyphony

The word polyphony comes from the Greek words "Cops," many and of "phonos, " sounds or melody, meaning the term with which the confluence of multiple independent sounds or voices that are conjugated in a harmonic whole is manifested.

The polyphony musical, is the term with which the confluence of multiple independent sounds or voices is manifested, which can have a slight lag with respect to others, or that carry a different melody, but that together, produce a whole harmonic.

It is thought that the polyphonic sounds emitted by the first hominids are the origin of polyphony in terms of "voices" that developed through evolution. human, first with common warning "cries" among hominid communities in the face of dangers, and then it evolved until it began to be constituted within the chants traditional traditions of various peoples (such as the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa, peoples of Europe and Oceania that today continue with polyphonic musical traditions), to this type of polyphony is called traditional polyphony, differentiating it from "academic" polyphony, which is the polyphony that is understood as such in music, which derives from the polyphony that began to resurface in the Middle Ages, and it was established within the canons of music, during the Renaissance, taking precedence over the monodic music that prevailed in the Middle Ages, (as in the troubadour chants or the Gregorian chants) which are an example of the monodic music that predominated before the resurgence of polyphony, to which currently called as

musical polyphony, academic polyphony or simply as polyphony.

Following the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the consequent migration of Greek thinkers to the West, coupled with the transcription and copying of classical manuscripts mainly Greeks from Arabic translations that later passed to Spain and through Spain to the rest of Europe, a movement emerged in Europe spread mainly by Catholic monks who copied ancient texts translating them into the languages ​​of the countries in which they inhabited, spreading Greek philosophy on the continent, influencing different fields such as science, medicine, architecture, sculpture, painting and music.

These cultural changes caused the diffusion of new ideas, among which were the new aspects polyphonic, which were opposed to monodic music, which prevailed during the Middle Ages, consolidating musical polyphony in the music.

Example of Musical Polyphony:

Polyphony Against point (Canon of Pachelbel)

Polyphony Leakage (Toccata and Fugue Johann Sebastian Bach)

Little Hebrew music