Get more posts like this delivered straight to your inbox! Click to subscribe by email. Over the next few weeks I will try to find examples of each different type and maybe introduce you to some new vocal traditions on the way. Overtone singing is a vocal technique that creates the auditory impression of polyphony by filtering individual overtones from the sound spectrum of the. Summit effectively puts the power of two.
And this is before we start layering the voices. Built on the innovative foundations of Novations critically acclaimed Peak synthesizer, Novation Summit is a three-oscillator-per-voice, 16-voice keyboard synth aimed at the professional or semi-professional musician seeking an inspiring, empowering instrument for use both live and in the studio. Also keep in mind that some high end Yamaha instruments can use 8 elements per voice. It would contain just the voice electronics x N and a power supply, no fancy chassis, no controls, no matrix, no analogue FX, no. Imagine a black box with just MIDI (and possibly a USB host) power and an audio jack. There are many different forms of polyphony and Jordania divides them into nine different types. For example, if you are playing a rich, layered sound made up of 4 simpler sounds, you may only have 16 notes of polyphony (or less) on a keyboard with maximum polyphony of 64-notes (64 divided by 4 equals 16). Its a bit early seeing as Ive not even received my MatrixBrute yet, but Id be a customer for a polyphonic voice expander. Jordania is interested in these different traditions, how they differ from each other, how they arose, what their characteristics are, why some places don’t use polyphony, and so on. Some parts of the world only have vocal monophony and no kind of part singing at all.
There are different polyphonic traditions across the globe. This 4-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer brings the powerful and analog warmth of the original, with the added versatility of being able to play chords. One voice mimics the motive ideas of the. Imitative Polyphony The next excerpt is two-part, imitative polyphony. Layering is an important feature of polyphonic texture.
This is somewhat like different parts of a machine moving at different but related speeds. where everybody is singing the same melody at the same time.Īn alternative to the word ‘polyphony’ is ‘multi-part music’, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. One voice may contain mostly quarter notes while another contains eighth notes. Polyphony is when two or more voices sing different things at the same time (polyphony can be applied to any kind of music-making, but I’m focusing here on vocal polyphony). I thought I’d try to give examples of each type from different parts of the world.īut first, I need to explain what ‘polyphony’ means in this context. I haven’t got very far yet (!), but I found his summary of the different kinds of polyphonic singing fascinating.
I’ve been prompted to write this post by reading Joseph Jordania’s excellent book Choral singing in human evolution (you can download it for free). So let’s find out what ‘polyphony’ means. It’s a bit of a daunting word, but very useful.