Pretty much all the songs we listen to today features multiple tracks of instrumentation and vocals. The term for this is “polyphonic.” But when did the idea of layering music begin?
The earliest evidence of a piece of music with two parts—at least one that was written down—is from around the year 900 when someone wrote something praising Saint Boniface, the patron saint of Germany. It was discovered in 2014 after the strange notation—a way of writing down music before the modern music notation was invented—was translated.
Musicologist now consider this composition, which appears at the end of a manuscript called Life of Bishop Maternianus of Reims, to have lain the foundations for Western music that have lasted for more than a thousand years.
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