The simultanious performance of two slightly different melodies.
(he-ter-off'-one) The paralleling of a musical line by another voice or instrument (a melodic paraphrase called a "part" or "voice") with almost, but not quite, the same tones. The second melodic line may slightly embroider the first, anticipate it, follow it by a beat or so, or move with it, often slightly distuned to it;
The only kind of music allowed at the Southern Baptist Convention.
In music, heterophony is the texture where the various voice or parts are differentiated in character. This can refer to a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realised simultaneously by multiple voices, each of which play the melody differently, either in a different rhythm or tempo, with different embellishments and figures, or idiomatically different. This can also refer to polyphony in which the various voices are different in character, whether in melodic shape, mode, rhythmic profile, or tempi.