Musical theory is rich in interesting terms. In each era, new means of improving and individualizing music appeared, which were influenced by composers, the performing staff, and the audience. Many genres and subgenres, styles and themes. In order not to be confused in this cornucopia , there is a classification of musical compositions by texture.
A stable musical and artistic whole
To understand further theory, you need to remember or study the very concept of musical composition. This term characterizes the integrity of the work, its specific embodiment. It distinguishes the finished "opus" from those created in the process of the people's creativity, or improvisations (for example, in jazz).
A composition always has a specific creator. A composer who provides sound structure captures the work in writing. Notations are carried out with the help of musical notation or signs accompanying it. Authorship, starting from the 14th century, is preferably indicated on each composition created, if the creator is known.
The composition is stable, like a finished and clearly defined work. Tonality, size, rhythm - everything is constant and does not tolerate significant changes. Naturally, each work requires certain aspects of performance. This is where invoice comes into play.
The concept of invoice
The music industry is developing, new canons and new trends appear that affect the style, form and character of the composition. So, the texture in music is the presentation of the material to the listener in a certain design, which will reflect the reality described by the sounds. The texture is the main link between the author’s idea and the perception of it by other people.
The word is Latin in origin, it means “design”, “structure”, “processing”. The texture in music is a clear definition. You can draw an analogy with the creation of a fabric product: musical fabric also requires processing to become holistic and complete.
What are the different options for?
Each work has a theme and a specific focus. Since the work here is exclusively on perception, it is necessary to convey emotions and situations as accurately as possible. Roughly speaking - to give a clear picture.
For example, the composer writes a lullaby. There is a melody, accompaniment, but they could equally well be applied in a military song or dance composition. It is necessary to give them a coloring of calmness, silence, lightness. Therefore, jerky strokes will not be used, the priority will be legato and lower sounds. Without a "squeak" and sudden movements.
Any emotion can be represented with a tool. Whistling flutes will best personify lightness and joy, heavy cello can show sorrow and mourning, timpani and bells give epic. The texture in music is a figment of the author’s imagination.
Basic classification of invoices
The most basic division, the two main types of textures in music are characterized by the number of voices used.
- Monodic is a type of texture in which one-voice movement is used. We can say that this is a “horizontal measurement”, since visually a solid line is shown on the stave, without branches in the form of chords. Examples are Gregorian singing or the work of peoples who did not know the polyphony.
- Polyphonic - a kind that implies at least two simultaneously sounding voices. That is, there can be three or four melodic lines, but not just one. And each line has its own independent melody. Polyphony is characterized by a constant number of voices, a smooth transition from one to another. The quantity will control the density of the composition or its “transparency” - a more sparse sound.
There is no third?
Unlike many terms in which there are only two extremes, there is also a heterophonic texture. This is a kind of “modernization” of a monodic presentation, when polyphonic techniques can be added to it for a more interesting sound. Unison singing is sometimes complicated by a two-voice pattern, the melody is accompanied by a rhythm. It turns out that this is an intermediate option.
Polyphonic texture types
Polyphony in music is called polyphony, has a thematic and rhythmic connection of voices. In the invoice aspect, it is divided into types:
- Choral texture means maintaining all the voices in one rhythmic pattern. That is, the melody moves along the same durations, not being divided into complex harmonic verticals;
- Mensural canons, or complementary polyphony, is determined by a small stratification of voices that are thematically similar, but move independently. That is, only the direction of movement of the melody is indicated, in which the durations can be split into several, and the rhythm of one voice does not depend on another.
- The dark texture creates unusual textured plexuses, combines incongruous. It became popular only at the beginning of the 20th century.
- The texture of linear polyphony is based on several voices that do not correspond in rhythm and harmony. The melody is based on the sequential movement of sounds of different heights.
- Polyphony of layers - complex polyphonic duplication, creating dissonances.
- “A dematerialized pointillistic texture that is easier to describe as“ jerky. ” The main line is transmitted not in the form of a motive, but in jerky sounds with a large spread. That is, between large pauses, bright flashes of sound slip through.
- The texture of polyphonic heaviness is completely opposite to the previous one. It represents a full-fledged orchestral sound.
- The elevator effect is an element of chance. The composition is based on the "lot" method, when combinations of notes are scattered on a stave. Often, authors write down only the main reference points from which the performer will push off, and then at his discretion.
- The texture of sonoristic effects switches attention to the transitions of tones, colors or harmonies. The brightness of the sound is transmitted by noise, a change in timbre. Sound-colorful effects are created.
Harmonization
The combination of “texture and warehouse” is indivisible. That aspect is harmony. It involves many types of textures, but is also divided into two main types:
- homophonic-harmonic, characterized by a clear separation of melodic drawings: the main theme, accompaniment, additional themes;
- chord, in which all sounds are of the same duration, and the texture itself is multi-rhythmic.
Types of Harmonic Textures
- Chord-figurative type - chord sounds are played alternately.
- The rhythmic type is the repeated repetition of a chord or harmony.
- Duplications - in an octave, in a fifth, other intervals, creating a smooth movement of voices relative to each other.
- Different types of melodic textures based on giving movement to voices. For example, auxiliary or additional sounds in chords that complicate the composition.
But this is the most general classification, individual items of which are rarely found apart. That is, music is diluted with individual techniques, stylistic features, taken from different types of textures. Each era is characterized by different so-called chips.
The beginning of the path to versatility
The history of the development of texture in music is performance, harmony, orchestration, and most importantly, composition. Some composers had a huge impact on the variety of textures in the works.
In the 17th century, receptions and warehouses were quite simple and very logical. A mixture of harmonic and polyphonic textures was used - polyphony with a variety of layouts. Passages and arpeggios were popular. Arpeggiated accompaniment just created the right mood, while not weighing heavily on the chords. The texture of the accompaniment in this case perfectly complemented the main theme and did not need to use other means. In this way, I.S. Bach, for example, in the Goldberg Variations. Other composers of the romantic era also distinguished themselves here: Georges Bizet, Giuseppe Verdi, Karl Czerny.
The arpeggio variety “figuration” was often used by Mozart, sounded actively, cheerfully and sharply. It is convenient in that it clearly conveys harmony and creates a certain rhythm without jumps. The music of Austrian romance is characterized as lightweight, sunny and unburdened due to its texture. Both broken and direct configurations were used.
Transition to bright style
With the introduction of innovations, the expansion of the imagination of authors of works, by the 19th century, the types of textures became at least three times more. As different types mixed, adopted and combined details, completely new musical arrangements appeared. The harmonious warehouse became much smoother and more melodic, and expressiveness was conveyed not by the set of sounds themselves, but by their order and arrangement.
A vivid example is F. Liszt, who applied mixed textured expositions in plays, for example, “Gray Clouds”, and in entire cycles “Years of Wanderings” and “Poetic and Religious Harmonies”. The height of the chords faded into the background, a texture-timbre appeared, which became widespread at Mussorgsky.
Separately, it is worth noting the music of Chopin, who used the piano texture. Among his favorite tricks were the octave technique and fluent playing of scales. In his waltzes (The Brilliant Waltz, Waltz in A Minor), he spread harmonious figures arranged in long rows of sounds. Such works require high performing technique, but are listened to and perceived easily. In a side part of the First Ballad for Piano, the composer fully introduced the polyphonic warehouse into harmony.
Period of innovation
The 20th century in art marked the transition from traditional forms to completely new and non-standard. Therefore, this era is characterized by a departure from harmonious and polyphonic texture. It becomes unbound, layered. A large spread of dynamics and timbres becomes commonplace in the works of avant-garde artists K. Stockhausen, L. Berio and P. Boulez. Often there is controlled aleatorics, that is, an impromptu texture. It is limited only by rhythm and height limits. This course was supervised by V. Lutoslavsky.
Formation played a large role, because in a torn and scattered texture it is important to maintain a cohesive construction of the composition. Even if poorly distinguishable, the picture creates an image. How to determine the type of texture in the music of a new era is an open question for art historians, since there are too many interactions and exchanges of receptions.
Emotions, emotions, emotions ...
All of the above leads to the fact that what is the texture in music directly determines the emotions and the desired response of the listener. In order to convey mental states, different registers are used:
- low, transmitting terrible and powerful sounds, reflecting mystery or mourning (darkness, night, heavy steps, the sounds of a locomotive, the hum of troops);
- the middle one, which is close to the human voice, attuning to calm and some slowness (narration, routine, rest and reflection);
- tall, stimulating and bright, depending on the instrument, it can be both cheerful and intense (screaming and screeching, trills of birds, bells, fussy movements);
Thanks to this distribution, music can tune to appeasement, lift the mood or make the hair on your head move with fear. And directly the invoice depends on the register used in the main topic.
Therefore, various types of “fabric” processing of the composition help people to penetrate the composer's experiences, draw in their head the pictures of the world as it was in the eyes of the authors of the works. Feel light while enjoying Chopin’s music, militancy in Beethoven’s opus, or Rimsky-Korsakov’s movement dynamics. The texture in music is a communicator through eras and differences in perception.