Hocket

The term originated in reference to medieval French motets, though the technique remains in common use in contemporary music.

Hocket is used in many African cultures such as the Ba-Benzélé (featured on Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man," see Pygmy music), Mbuti, Basarwa (Khoisan), the Gumuz tribe from the Blue Nile Province (Sudan), and Gogo (Tanzania).

Segments of the trombone ensemble in Duke Ellington's "Braggin' in Brass"[1] are a rare jazz instance of hocket.

While hoquet is an antiquated term and in contemporary practice is usually used alongside other melodic compositional devices and experimentation, it has found use in funk, and stereo panning, among other modern techniques typically used in similar style, and in multiple track recordings is often used artificially while editing arrangements of the song.

The group's frontman Dave Longstreth has expressed his interest and surprise in the medieval origins of the experimental techniques in use by the band.

In seculum
Example of hocket ( In seculum d'Amiens longum ), French, late 13th century. Observe the quick alternation of sung notes and rests between the upper two voices. While this example is textless, the hocket was usually done on a vowel sound.
A sikuri , a traditional Andean music form, is played in hocket. Computer-generated file.