In a piece of music (or a musical performance) is constructed of many building blocks. These includes the melody or melodies, the harmonies, and the rhythms, as well as the form. When these different building blocks are brought together along with tempo and timbre, they create a musical texture.
This video here gives an overview of different
textures and examples of how they're used.
There is a wide variety of textures
Monophonic = a single unaccompanied line of music, most often a melody.
Homophonic = when an arrangement of instruments are all playing the same time with the same rhythm. Often this texture sounds like chords with a melody on top.
Melody Dominated Homophony = probably the most common musical texture often described as melody with accompaniment.
Polyphonic = many lines of music e.g. 2-part, 3-part or 4-part as the same time. This often involves imitation of melody parts. If written in counterpoint, different melodies playing on top of each but have equal importance, then is referred to as a Contrapuntal texture.
Antiphony = often called "Call & Response", where one line/instrument plays a question line and is answered by a separate music line/phrase later on in the piece.
Tutti = all instruments playing at the same time. The word in Italian means "all together".
