In AP Music Theory, accompaniment is the supporting musical material (chords, broken-chord patterns, bass lines) that provides harmonic and rhythmic foundation under a primary melody, creating the melody-with-accompaniment type of homophonic texture covered in Topic 2.11.
Accompaniment is everything in the music that supports the main melody instead of competing with it. Think of a singer with a guitarist strumming chords, or a piano piece where the right hand carries the tune while the left hand plays broken chords. The melody is the star; the accompaniment is the backing band.
In the AP Music Theory CED, accompaniment defines one of the main texture types. Texture is about how musical lines combine, and the big categories are monophony, homophony, polyphony, and heterophony. Homophony splits into two flavors. In chordal homophony, all the voices move together in the same rhythm (like a hymn). In melody with accompaniment, one line is clearly the melody and the other material is subordinate, filling in harmony and rhythm underneath. That subordinate material is the accompaniment. It can be block chords, arpeggios, an Alberti bass pattern, or a simple bass line, and it often has less melodic character and a narrower role than the tune it supports.
Accompaniment lives in Topic 2.11 (Texture and Texture Types) in Unit 2: Music Fundamentals II. It directly supports learning objective 2.11.A: Identify texture types in performed music and notated music. That phrasing matters. You have to recognize accompaniment both by ear (listening excerpts) and by eye (a score where one staff has a tune and the other has chord patterns). Spotting accompaniment is the fastest way to label a texture as homophonic rather than monophonic or polyphonic, and texture identification shows up in the aural multiple-choice portion of the exam. The skill also feeds forward: once you can isolate the accompaniment from the melody, analyzing the harmony underneath (chords, Roman numerals) gets much easier in later units.
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Visual cheatsheet
view galleryHomophonic texture (Unit 2)
Accompaniment is what makes homophony homophonic. Melody with accompaniment is one of the two subtypes of homophonic texture, alongside chordal homophony. If you hear one clear melody plus supporting chords, you're hearing homophony, and the chords are the accompaniment.
Heterophony (Unit 2)
Heterophony is the texture students mix up with melody-plus-accompaniment. In heterophony, multiple performers play versions of the SAME melody at the same time with small variations. Nobody is accompanying anyone. In melody with accompaniment, the supporting parts are genuinely different material, not decorated copies of the tune.
Oblique Motion (Unit 2)
Accompaniment patterns often create oblique motion, where one voice holds still (a sustained bass or pedal tone) while the melody moves above it. Recognizing motion types between melody and accompaniment helps you describe how the lines relate, which is the whole point of texture analysis.
Accompaniment shows up in texture-identification multiple-choice questions, both aural and notated. A classic stem describes a piano piece with a right-hand melody while the left hand plays broken chords in a repeating low-high-middle-high pattern, and the answer is melody with accompaniment (that specific broken-chord figure is an Alberti bass). The term also appears in reverse. A question describing a solo flute melody with no harmonic support or accompaniment is pointing you to monophony. So your job is twofold. First, when accompaniment is present, name the texture homophonic (melody with accompaniment). Second, when the stem explicitly says there is no accompaniment, rule out homophony entirely. No released FRQ has used the term verbatim, but the listening skill behind it (separating melody from supporting material) underpins the harmonic dictation and analysis work later in the course.
Both are homophonic textures, which is exactly why they get confused. In chordal homophony, all voices move in essentially the same rhythm, like a four-part hymn where everyone changes notes together. In melody with accompaniment, the melody and the supporting parts have different rhythms and different jobs. The melody sings; the accompaniment churns out chords, arpeggios, or bass notes underneath. Quick test: cover the melody mentally. If what's left sounds like a self-sufficient pattern of harmony rather than half of a unified chord block, it's accompaniment.
Accompaniment is the supporting material (chords, arpeggios, bass lines) that provides harmonic and rhythmic foundation beneath a primary melody.
The presence of accompaniment defines melody with accompaniment, one of the two subtypes of homophonic texture in Topic 2.11.
Melody with accompaniment differs from chordal homophony because the supporting parts move in different rhythms from the melody instead of moving with it.
An Alberti bass, a left-hand broken-chord pattern cycling low-high-middle-high, is the textbook accompaniment figure to recognize on the exam.
If a question says a melody has no accompaniment or harmonic support, the texture is monophony, not homophony.
Learning objective 2.11.A requires you to identify accompaniment-based textures both by ear and in notated scores.
Accompaniment is the supporting musical material that gives a melody its harmonic and rhythmic foundation, like a guitarist's chords under a singer. It defines the melody-with-accompaniment texture type in Topic 2.11 of the CED.
Almost. Melody with accompaniment is one subtype of homophony, but homophony also includes chordal homophony, where all voices move together in the same rhythm. So every melody-with-accompaniment texture is homophonic, but not every homophonic texture has a separate accompaniment part.
Accompaniment is subordinate to the melody and mostly fills in harmony and rhythm. Counterpoint means two or more independent melodic lines of roughly equal interest, which is polyphony, not homophony. If a second line could stand alone as its own melody, you're past accompaniment territory.
An Alberti bass is a broken-chord accompaniment pattern, usually in the left hand of a piano piece, that cycles through chord tones in a low-high-middle-high order. AP multiple-choice questions describe exactly this pattern and expect you to identify the texture as melody with accompaniment.
No. A single unaccompanied melodic line, like a solo flute or Gregorian chant, is monophony. Homophony requires harmonic support, so the absence of accompaniment is your cue to answer monophonic.
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