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Since poly- means "many", polyphonic music has "many voices". In polyphony, each part has its own melody, and they weave together in a web that may become very dense; a famous piece by Thomas Tallis, composed around 1570, has 40 separate voice parts. Polyphony reached its height during the 16th century with Italian madrigals and the sacred music of such composers as Tallis, Palestrina, and Byrd. Usually when we speak of polyphony we're talking about music of Bach's time and earlier; but the principles remain the same today, and songwriters such as the Beatles have sometimes used polyphony as well.
Examples of polyphonic in a Sentence
Hanif Abdurraqib, New Yorker, 18 Dec. 2025
Angela Flournoy follows her highly honored first novel, The Turner House (2016), with an illuminating polyphonic exploration of the glorious heights and darkest lows of friendships among four women.
—Jane Ciabattari
september 16, Literary Hub, 16 Sep. 2025
Zivix reports that its algorithms can register complex playing techniques like polyphonic bends, slides, hammer-ons and pull-offs, tapping and muting.
—New Atlas, 21 Aug. 2025
Byrd is the word: Revel in the polyphonic glories of William Byrd, perhaps the greatest and certainly most influential of all the English Renaissance composers, in a setting that surely would have felt home to him, as a composer of sacred songs.
—Randy McMullen, Mercury News, 17 July 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Polyphonic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polyphonic. Accessed 25 Dec. 2025.
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