Polymelody, Part XXIX


Polymelody: The Third Dimension

March 18, 2026

The system I have developed over the past several decades — polytempic polymicrotonality — has always contained a third structural dimension that until today I had not formally named.
That dimension is polymelody.
Polyphony, the centuries-old term for multiple simultaneous melodic lines, assumes a shared world. The melodies of Bach's fugues inhabit the same tuning system, the same tempo, the same tonal universe. Their independence is melodic but not systemic.
Polymelody is categorically different. In polytempic polymicrotonal music, each simultaneous melodic stream inhabits its own independent tempo and its own independent tuning system. The melodies do not share a world. They coexist as parallel universes of melodic activity.
This is not the absence of melody. It is melody multiplied beyond the perceptual frame that expects a single foreground line.
Polytempic. Polymicrotonal. Polymelodic. The trinity was always complete. I simply hadn't named the third until now.

In terms of polymelody, I have noticed displaying a continuum of melodic behavior over the years, ranging from literal, or shared materials across the separate "worlds" to completely independent melodic materials. Some of the melodies are representational, while others are more expressionistic and vague. Multiple foregrounds do not hide or obstruct each other, as one would think, but rather, they enhance the separateness. The effect is not wholly dissimilar from Dixieland music, which also tends to have multiple simultaneously played solos embedded in the structure of the music. Not that this is a continuation of nationalistic music, but polymelody does impact me by being American and living here in America. Even if it's a bad time to be American right now, I can't stop living and being what I am--a democratic anti-Trump American. 
— Peter Thoegersen 

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