Towards a Holophonic Musical Texture

Since the Middle Ages to the present, the nature of musical texture in western music has developed from Monophony through Polyphony to Homophony. It has been continuously modified as a reaction to the need to redefine the structural formation of the overall sound of the music of each period. In the last century, musical texture looks as if it has no clear direction. For example, music today often can exhibit more than one type of texture at the same time; this is called mixed texture or open texture. A more recently introduced type of texture, first used by Ligeti in the 1960s, is micropolyphony. This paper will present recent theories and ideas about the layering of sounds and their relationships from eminent electroacoustic music composers whose work covers a wide range of different aesthetics, styles and directions. The concept of the sound object in Schaefferian theory will be considered, and Smalley's spectromorphological approach, as well as ideas of Risset and Xenakis. In addition, ideas on theoretical models on the fusion of sound objects and perceptual processes by McAdams and Bergman will be examined. A theoretical background to musical texture and its main types will also be presented. The aim of this paper is to introduce and define the terms Holophony and Holophonic musical texture as a possible type of musical texture of our time following the paradigms of Monophony, Polyphony and Homophony. The explanation of compositional methodologies and techniques, as well as the analysis of compositional examples that fall under the type of Holophonic texture, are beyond the scope of this paper.