What's the difference between homophony and polyphony?

Homophony


Definition:

  • (n.) Sameness of sound.
  • (n.) Sameness of sound; unison.
  • (n.) Plain harmony, as opposed to polyphony. See Homophonous.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The difference between word and nonword processing was shown by manipulations of the visual similarity and the homophony between stimuli presented successively.
  • (2) Visual similarity affected both words and nonwords, whereas homophony affected words only.

Polyphony


Definition:

  • (n.) Multiplicity of sounds, as in the reverberations of an echo.
  • (n.) Plurality of sounds and articulations expressed by the same vocal sign.
  • (n.) Composition in mutually related, equally important parts which share the melody among them; contrapuntal composition; -- opposed to homophony, in which the melody is given to one part only, the others filling out the harmony. See Counterpoint.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The polyphony of themes that can be seen in the initial dream of psychoanalysis warns of monothematic interpretive proposals by therapists that are likely to be ill-understood or frankly rejected by patients in favor of openended interpretations.
  • (2) Judith Mackrell on Rien de Rien, Guardian, 2001 Do say "Yes, the music is often medieval polyphony, but then the choreography is itself a kind of polyphony."
  • (3) What it does is empower people to think differently.” In that respect, the show’s dense cultural polyphony is as clear a statement of purpose from a new voice as musical theater has heard in years.
  • (4) The latter refers to the "present day" sections of the film, in which Gainsbourg's character Joe recounts her past experiences to the man (played by Stellan Skarsgard) who finds her severely beaten in the street, who in turn analyses Joe's stories in terms of his intellectual passions, which include Bach polyphony, Edgar Allan Poe, and fly fishing.
  • (5) What Hamilton loved so much about Joyce was the mastery of language, the fluency of movement, the "polyphony of tongues, codes, ideolects" that released and inspired Hamilton himself to try out "some implausible associations in paint".

Words possibly related to "homophony"