Heterophony

In music, heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time in multiple voices, each of which plays the melody differently, either in a different rhythm or tempo, or with various embellishments and elaborations. The term was initially introduced into systematic musicology to denote a subcategory of polyphonic music, though is now regarded as a textural category in its own right.

== Characteristics == Heterophony is often a characteristic feature of non-Western traditional musics—for example Chinese traditional music, Ottoman classical music, Arabic classical music, Japanese Gagaku, the gamelan music of Indonesia, kulintang ensembles of the Philippines and the traditional music of Thailand. In European traditions, there are also some examples of heterophony. One such example is dissonant heterophony of Dinaric Ganga or "Ojkavica" traditions from southern Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro that is attributed to ancient Illyrian tradition. Another remarkably vigorous European tradition of heterophonic music exists, in the form of Outer Hebridean Gaelic psalmody.