We have all heard it, yet most of us would not be able to name it. The term polyphony (from the Greek for “many sounds”) is used to describe music that employs simultaneous yet independent melodies.

In Polyphonic Minds: Music of the Hemispheres (The MIT Press, 2017), Peter Pesic examines the shift in Western history from monophonic music — music with one melodic line — to polyphonic music, which ...

This week on Continuum Milton Scheuermann and Thais St. Julien present examples of the first forms of polyphony, music composed for two or more melodies performed at the same time. Various examples ...