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Since poly- means "many", polyphonic music has "many voices". In polyphony, each part has its own melody, and they weave together in a web that may become very dense; a famous piece by Thomas Tallis, composed around 1570, has 40 separate voice parts. Polyphony reached its height during the 16th century with Italian madrigals and the sacred music of such composers as Tallis, Palestrina, and Byrd. Usually when we speak of polyphony we're talking about music of Bach's time and earlier; but the principles remain the same today, and songwriters such as the Beatles have sometimes used polyphony as well.
Examples of polyphonic in a Sentence
Nargess Banks, Forbes, 1 Jan. 2025
Everything [in Georgia] symbolizes wine—like the architecture of the medieval century, like churches, even Georgian polyphonic singing, which reminds me of the curly vines.
—Kurt Johnson, Condé Nast Traveler, 20 Dec. 2024
Daphne’s original voice cannot be recovered but Mobarak animates a space for its absence to be heard anew, among a polyphonic chorus of human-nonhuman sound that is at once incomplete and overflowing.
—Mariana Fernández, ARTnews.com, 18 Dec. 2024
Every character in this story gets their own voice — the novel’s polyphonic structure comprises 21 first-person chapters, a daisy chain of regret, anger, humor and self-loathing.
—Tomi Obaro, Vulture, 21 Nov. 2024
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“Polyphonic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polyphonic. Accessed 5 Jan. 2025.
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