- Hi. In this film, I'm going
to try and answer a question
that has been put to us about texture.
What is texture in music?
It's a word we use about all
sorts of things isn't it?
You might use the word texture in relation
to painting, for example,
you might even use the word
in relation to cooking.
So what does it mean in music?
Well, maybe a basic definition is that
it's really all about
how is sound organised.
So for example, I could
have a piece of music
that just has a single line.
So maybe just an unaccompanied folk melody
or something that may be
monks or nuns might sing
as an unaccompanied line.
And we would say that that
is a monophonic texture.
In other words, there's
just one sound going on.
Whereas this would be an
example of a two part texture.
Because I've got one set
of notes going in one hand,
another set of notes
going in the other hand,
so that's a two part texture.
If I play something like this,
here's a four part texture.
But I might have a much thicker texture.
So if I've got lots of notes,
here's an example of a thick texture.
So once I'm building chords
with six, seven, eight,
different sounds going
on at the same time,
then I might describe
that as a thick texture.
So you can use words like
thick or thin texture.
So that's one way in which we
could talk about our texture.
Obviously, we've got more
obvious things like high and low.
Here's a high texture.
Here's a low texture.
I may have a widely space texture
where I've got one part very
high, one part very low.
Or, I may have a very kind
of tightly packed texture,
where maybe I've got quite a few notes
but they're all quite close together.
Or you could say that that
texture is very much concentrated
in the middle of the piano,
whereas the previous texture
was a very widely spaced texture.
So you see, texture has anything to do
with how sound is organised.
Now we also have words that we use,
like homophonic, and polyphonic.
So if you have a homophonic texture,
it's basically that the
chords are organised this way
that your music is organised vertically.
So if I go from one chord
to another like this.
You can hear I've got a tune
at the top of that texture.
But really the texture
is going from this chord,
to that chord, to that chord.
So if it's basically organised
in that vertical way,
we say it's homophonic.
Whereas if we have one line
kind of copying another line,
maybe just imitating
it a little bit apart,
then we could say that
that's a polyphonic texture.
So, if I do something like this.
Can you see what happens here
or hear what happens there?
One part begins, another
part kind of copies it.
It may be copied exactly
or it may be kind of imitated
slightly more loosely.
But what we hear there
is one line kind of going horizontally.
And then another line joining
it also going horizontally,
and it might be two part
polyphonic music as it was there.
Or it might be three-part, four-part,
five-part polyphonic music.
So thinking about whether
the music is homophonic
or polyphonic or when those
changes are coming about,
thinking about high, low, thick, thin
textures that are basically block chords.
We described that as
a block chord texture,
because it's just one
chord after another chord,
or you may hear a chordal texture
which is basically a homophonic texture
that has a melody at the top of it
and you could say it's a
texture which is melody,
and accompaniment.
Or you may find that the
texture is more broken up.
So I've got a broken chord texture.
So it could be something like
this same kind of piece, but.
Now that's still a homophonic piece
because it's still basically
organised in chords.
But all I'm doing this time
instead of having block chords
underneath that melody.
I've got these notes that are kind of
broken up a little bit or I
might have a homophonic texture,
which is all arpeggiated.
So that's still homophonic,
it's still chordal.
But I've got arpeggios running through
the accompaniment this time.
So lots of different ways
of organising a texture.
You might also want to say where
a melody is in the texture.
Is it a top of the texture
as it was on that occasion,
or maybe it's in the bass.
You see what I'm doing there,
that's another homophonic texture
but the melodies at the
bottom of the texture
and the right hand is doing
a kind of repeated chord accompaniment.
So anyway, the purpose of
this is just to kind of get us
into understanding the word texture,
and to understand different ways
in which we might talk about it.
Different ways in which
it might be organised.
There's much more to say about texture,
but I hope at least that kind
of launches some thinking
that might be helpful.
