Chapter 5: A surprise 3 voice polyphony composition
I have composed trios over the past 12 or so years but while doing so I was never thinking about 3 voice polyphone composing. So I am curious what will happen if I try to get 3 different melodic lines to come together in a composition. However as I have already mentioned I am aware that the mind gives the highest voice the most attention and that it finds it easy to ignore the lower voices and treat them more as background.
I checked in with Google’s AI and it told me:
“Difficulty identifying multiple simultaneous melodies, a texture known as polyphony, is a common cognitive challenge because the human brain is naturally inclined to focus on a single dominant "figure" against a "ground".
Why It Is Difficult
Attentional Limits: Most listeners can only actively comprehend up to three "auditory scenes"at a time; any more often leads to a "cluttered" or "messy" perception where sounds blend into a single texture rather than distinct lines.
Figure-Ground Processing: The brain typically selects one melody as the foreground while relegating others to the background. Shifting this focus rapidly between melodies is a learned skill.
Memory Overload: Identifying melodies requires short-term musical memory. Attempting to track three different lines simultaneously can overload this memory, causing you to "forget" or lose track of one line as soon as you focus on another.”
The AI offers some remedies like repeated listening and focusing on one melody at a time and similar suggestions which I found interesting because I had sort of tried to accomplish the same by first playing one melody on its own before bringing in 2 melodies and also by giving each melody some time in the top.
In spite of this I thought I should give it a try to find 3 different melodies and see what I can get up to with them and what I can learn from this experience.
So I started from scratch as I always do with a melodic fragment. In this case I chose a one bar idea. Next I tried to make up 2 additional ideas that would go well together with the first one:
Next I thought I expand each of these 3 ideas into 3 bars still continuing to the same initial idea for each of them. Next a one bar connection idea to lead into the next set where the second voice was now the first on top, the last the second and what had been the first became the last. Again a connection idea and then the set repeated again but now with what was last at the start now the top voice.
I didn’t want to stop there so I created a connector for a change from C-Major to E-Minor and repeated the idea before coming back to C-Major to bring it all to an end but with the initial starter idea being the last one this time:
This had been probably the first time that I had “assembled” a composition.
This is what it sounded like:
I was very surprised how cheerful and pleasant it all sounded. As a result I filed it away in a folder I called Surprise.
Next I contacted 2 friends to share this surprise with them. Both are good friends so they both were happy to tell me they liked it. -:)
But Guy mentioned to me that whilst he liked it he felt that it was not “finished”.
So I thought that maybe it needed an introduction and an ending of sorts? This is what I came up with:
So what can I learn from this?
Three voice polyphonic compositions can work well together and do not create a conflict.
I believe the top voice always gets the top billing. I have no difficulty in hearing and identifying and following a second voice but with the third I must admit it becomes difficult for me.
In this case where each melody is played one after the other as the top melody but also at different times as “melody 2” or “melody 3” you do become familiar with each of them better than if you had only played them all together but only once.
Is it possible to bring in a second melody and by doing so enhance the impact on the listener and then continue to bring in a third melody and increase the effect on the listener in a way that would not have been possible with 2 voices? I am thinking of a horizontal and vertical appearance of them in order to give the listening mind a chance to cope with their impact. Definitely an interesting idea and a challenge.