Polyphony

Also, as opposed to the species terminology of counterpoint,[clarification needed] polyphony was generally either "pitch-against-pitch" / "point-against-point" or "sustained-pitch" in one part with melismas of varying lengths in another.

These treatises provided examples of two-voice note-against-note embellishments of chants using parallel octaves, fifths, and fourths.

[8] However, a two-part antiphon to Saint Boniface recently discovered in the British Library, is thought to have originated in a monastery in north-west Germany and has been dated to the early tenth century.

In the 13th century, the chant-based tenor was becoming altered, fragmented, and hidden beneath secular tunes, obscuring the sacred texts as composers continued to develop polyphonic techniques.

Avignon, the seat of popes and then antipopes, was a vigorous center of secular music-making, much of which influenced sacred polyphony.

[11] The notion of secular and sacred music merging in the papal court also offended some medieval ears.

It gave church music more of a jocular performance quality supplanting the solemnity of worship they were accustomed to.

The use of and attitude toward polyphony varied widely in the Avignon court from the beginning to the end of its religious importance in the fourteenth century.

After banishing polyphony from the Liturgy in 1322, Pope John XXII warned against the unbecoming elements of this musical innovation in his 1324 bull Docta Sanctorum Patrum.

The oldest extant polyphonic setting of the mass attributable to one composer is Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame, dated to 1364, during the pontificate of Pope Urban V. The Second Vatican Council said Gregorian chant should be the focus of liturgical services, without excluding other forms of sacred music, including polyphony.

This tradition passed with emigrants to North America, where it was proliferated in tunebooks, including shape-note books like The Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp.

In terms of Western classical music, it is not strictly polyphonic, due to the drone parts having no melodic role, and can better be described as multipart.

Albanian polyphonic singing can be divided into two major stylistic groups as performed by the Tosks and Labs of southern Albania.

The Chakrulo song, which is sung at ceremonies and festivals and belongs to the first category, is distinguished by its use of metaphor and its yodel, the krimanchuli and a "cockerel’s crow", performed by a male falsetto singer.

The specific cadence of a final, dissonant three-part chord, consisting of fourth and the second on top (c-f-g), is almost unique.

Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands are host to instrumental polyphony, in the form of bamboo panpipe ensembles.

[34][35] Numerous Sub-Saharan African music traditions host polyphonic singing, typically moving in parallel motion.

[36] While the Maasai people traditionally sing with drone polyphony, other East African groups use more elaborate techniques.