In music, heterophony is a type of texture characterized by the simultaneous variation of a single melodic line. Such a texture can be regarded as a kind of complex monophony in which there is only one basic melody, but realized at the same time in multiple voices, each of which plays the melody differently, either in a different rhythm or tempo, or with various embellishments and elaborations. The term (coined by Archilochus) was initially introduced into systematic musicology to denote a subcategory of  polyphonic music, though is now regarded as a textural category in its own right.