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Homophony and those simple melodies and riffs
I learned a new musical term, “homophony” – A musical texture consisting of one melody and an accompaniment that supports it.
I think some of the most powerful rock songs are of these type, especially ones with a very simple and basic melody that you could play with one finger on the piano in essence or one string on the guitar. One that stand out for me is by Chicago.
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12 Replies
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And these simple yet power guitar riffs played on one string with accompaniments:
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This one by Cream and the Deep Purple song are considered some of the greatest “one string guitar” songs in rock.
And then there are other great songs by the legends that are based around a simple melody accompanied by vocals, like Beatles Let It Be, Simon and Garfunkle Bridge Over Troubled Water and Sounds of Silence, John Lennon Imagine…etc.
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A couple more examples
https://youtu.be/PqUenEMwsdQ -
And this
https://youtu.be/-jB_QM73Slk -
One of my faves is this one that appeared on an old soundtrack album that was one of the earliest songs I heard when I was very little that was played often in the house. It’s such a beautiful melody.
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A classical example is this beauty. One finger right hand melody accompanied by left handed chord flourishes.
https://youtu.be/eMnxjdGTK4wDo you have any Homophonic tunes you especially like?
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That’s a new term for me too, Jung. The structure of the word implies that it would mean “same sound”, but clearly there’s more to it than that. I was a little squishy on the meaning, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Their definition is basically any situation where you have one voice or instrument doing something intricate, such as a melody, while everyone and everything else is doing something more plodding, such as chords. If we go by that, then a very large fraction of all songs ever written fall into that category.
I think that as genres go, perhaps doo-wop music is the most consistently structured around homophony. Those songs almost always feature a lead singer soaring above steady harmonies, and that’s a formula that never fails to make my ears do a happy dance.
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Hi David, I agree the term Homophony does encompass quite a range by it’s definition. Pretty much anything done on piano would fall in that category too. Perhaps that term wasn’t really that accurate to describe what I am trying to convey.
I was thinking really of a very simple melody that could be played with one finger on the piano or plucked one note at a time on the guitar as a single voice, just half or quarter notes, nothing fancy or fast, accompanied by a vocal or another instrument, like in Color My World. It’s so powerful by it’s simplicity I think. And those Doo-Wops sound great also because of the simplicity that a Homophonic structure brings. That Gymnopedie piano piece is one of the most famous classical piano pieces, because of it’s simplicity I think. The beginning of Let It Be is like that too. Toward the end there are guitar flourishes and lots of instrument, but at the beginning, it’s just a very basic piano voice and then simple vocals running in parallel with the piano. At it’s heart and core, it is very basic.
The opening part of Stairway to Heaven is like that too, a very simple guitar voice, then a flute joins in, followed by a vocal and later only half way into the 8 minutes song the drums and more guitars join in. Some of the guitar work toward the end are awesome, but for me, the the simple and basic first 2.5 minutes is just as powerful, and maybe even the most impactful.
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I’m probably only about the billionth person to notice this, but that piano part from Colour My World seems to borrow pretty heavily from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
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Wow David, in the 45+ years I’ve known that song, I never connected it to the Moonlight Sonata first movement, but it does indeed have a very similar structure and feel. Thanks for pointing that out.
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The principal feature of Homophony is there is an accompanied single dominating melody (without accompaniment it becomes Monophony). In its purest form most hymn tunes would qualify, but the term is general expanded to include a dominant melody with a supporting accompaniment, and most simple pop/rock/folk music would qualify.
In the case of Stairway to Heaven, I am not sure the beginning would qualify until the voice enters – initially you have an accompaniment figure on guitar, however ascetically interesting it is in its own right, joined by the flutes filling harmony and only when the voice enters you have a real melody. The intro to PF’s Wish You Were Here is in some way similar but even more sophisticated with an overlaying improvisatory guitar solo replacing the simple flute fills (I have been trying to study Lisa’s performance to try and work the solo out for myself (and not getting very far!) 🙂 )
In a way, Homophony is a restricted form of Polyphony. In Polyphony all parts may be of equal importance, like in a good amount of Bach for example (but the Aria from the Goldberg’s would count as Homophony I guess).
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Hi Alan, thanks for that interesting insight into Homophony, and I didn’t think of it but yes Pink Floyds Wish You Were Here has that structure of a very simple tune with accompaniment at the beginning. Interestingly I notice in Stairway to Heaven, Wish You Were Here, and Let It Be, that homophonic effect takes up about a good quarter of the songs length before other instrumental and or vocal voices jump in and take it away. Maybe a quarter of a songs length is a natural fit or structure for a homonphonic effect to be effective. I’m sure these songs weren’t written that way intentionally, but turned out that way naturally.
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