Texture, Timbre and Instrumentation

Two elements are especially useful for distinguishing musical styles and traditions: texture, the way musical lines combine, and timbre, the characteristic quality of sounds. Together with instrumentation—the specific voices and instruments used—they often define a tradition's identity as strongly as its melodies or harmonies.

Texture: how lines combine

Texture describes how many musical lines are sounding and how they relate. Monophonic texture is a single melodic line with no accompaniment, as in unaccompanied chant or a solo flute. Homophonic texture has one main melody supported by accompanying harmony, the most common texture in Western popular and much classical music. Polyphonic texture weaves two or more independent melodic lines together, as in a fugue or much Renaissance choral m