This article is about a style of music. For the musical instrument, see organum . For the experimental music group, see David Jackman Organum (, though the stress is now sometimes incorrectly put on the second syllable, from Ancient Greek ??????? - organon "organ, instrument, tool") is a technique of singing developed in the Middle Ages, and is an early form of polyphonic music. In its earliest stages, organum involved two musical voices: a Gregorian chant melody, and the same melody transposed by a consonant interval, usually a perfect fifth or fourth. In these cases often the composition began and ended on a unison, maintaining the transposition only between the start and finish (although see below). Organum was originally improvised; while one singer performed a notated melody (the vox principalis), another singer—singing "by ear"—provided the unnotated second melody (the vox organa

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