Texture can make music quite exciting! Modern pop music is a mixture of different styles, cultures and textures. As musicians we tend to borrow from the sounds that inspire us when creating our own pieces of music. As the book stated, in a lot of cases music blends different types of textures together in a single work. I believe this allows for a much more dynamic piece of music and makes it more exciting for the listener (or at least for myself).
There are several other types of Monophonic music aside from Gregorian Chant. The song “Taps” which is featured during military funerals is something that anyone easily recognizes. The first monophonic example shown below is “Taps” being played at Arlington National Cemetery.
This next example is the same melody played in a Round making this Monophonic melody now Polyphonic.
Another example of Monophonic Music are Fife and Drum Corps that we now associate with anything to do with the Civil War. You will notice near the end the Fifes begin harmonizing thus changing the texture.
While the previous two examples aren't modern “Pop” Music, they are two examples that are something that is now part of Pop Culture thanks to Hollywood!
Homophonic Music much more common in today's pop music. It is the easiest form of music for us to understand as general consumers. One might also want to realize that most modern pop music is a blend of textures as well. A song could start out acapella with a single vocal or instrument melody, then later be accompanied by chords. This then blends Monophonic Styles and Homophonic styles. The example below is “VooDoo” by the metal band Godsmack. The beginning is a single chant vocal melody which later is accompanied by chords and harmonizing.
Polyphonic Music in pop culture can be most heard in the music we hear in movies. Nearly all movies have some sort of orchestration scored underneath them. Initially, movie music is what made me want to play music! When I heard the theme music from Jaws, Star Wars, Star Trek, Indiana Jones (yes, we will blame John Williams for peaking my musical interests) it made me want to reproduce what I was hearing because it was exciting. Because this music is so engrained in our heads and is modern, I will argue that it IS pop music. In the example below I am sharing Duel of the Fates which was a song featured in Star Wars. (Which really is similar to Camina Burana, but we won't go there!)
Polyphonic in actual “Pop” music can be heard by many of the “Divas” such as Mariah, Beyonce, Alicia Keys. Typically the songs will start out homophonic, but why the end to create tension the lead vocal will tend to “improvise” of the original vocal bed underneath. In this Mariah Carey song, “We Belong Together” you can hear a modern examply of poliphony. There is a vocal bed underneath the main vocal that is not parallel harmony. It is working independently in Counterpoint with the main vocal to create the harmony we hear, but is it's own independent line. Without it the song would sound completely different so it is as important, although mixed back, as the main vocal line.
The Kings of Heterophonic Music are Black Sabbath. In the example below I have shared the song “Iron Man”. We all know this song. Here the guitar, bass and vocals all primarily play the same melody during the verse but with slight variations between the parts. One could argue it is monophonic in octaves, but I believe the guitar slides and how some of the lyrics adjust how Ozzy is changing the vocal melody (along with a double vocal) makes this Heterophonic.
While all of these styles can be found in modern music we find that homophonic music is the norm because of it's roots in Folk Music. Folk songwriters write a song with an emphasis on the message being delivered in the vocal. Most folk singers simply just sing over an acoustic guitar to tell a story. When they write the song, most of them simply start off singing over a single acoustic guitar and as the song is built in the studio other instruments are added to create the “bed” underneath the dominant vocal. With this focus on the delivery of the vocal and it's message, folk music has disregarded the need for polyphony in most cases because it takes the listener away from focusing on the singer. As music became more accessible for mass production popular music was born. Today, especially when anything can be created in a studio, in most cases the average listener has a very short attention span. If it takes the listener more than once to “get” a song, it's probably not going to sell. The music industry in a sense has killed the art of songwriting with the need to make money being more important than the art itself. I believe that is why most of the music we hear today is homophonic in nature. It's just easier to “get”.
