Portugal
According to the Garland Encyclopedia article written by the expert of the Portugal traditional music and polyphony, Castelo-Branco (2000), vocal polyphonic singing occurs in few isolated pockets of northern and southern Portugal. In the mountainous north part of Portugal these are the districts of Viana do Castelo, Braga and Aveiro. In the central part of the north of Portugal there is the district of Viseu, and in central-east Portugal the district of Castelo-Branco. Another important region of traditional polyphony is in the district of Beja in the southern part of Portugal.
The polyphonic traditions are mostly connected to the European major-minor harmonic system. Two-, three- and four-part singing in Portugal is based on European triadic harmonies and parallel thirds.
The scales are mostly European major and minor, but in the Beja and Castelo-Branco districts older scale systems are also used. The melodies in the central, eastern and south Portugal polyphonic traditions use melismatic ornaments (but not in the Northwestern districts). In most of the polyphonic regions women sing polyphonic songs. Only in southern Portugal (district Beja in Alentejo) is polyphony primarily a part of the male repertoire.

Generally speaking, central France is the largest territory of non-polyphonic singing traditions in the Western Europe. As Hugh Shields put it, “centuries of classical polyphony have made little impression on the monophonic popular tradition and its realization mainly as solo performance” (2000:542). Elements of polyphony and harmony are usually confined to the use of accompanying instruments, or, in vocal music, to the use of heterophonic singing.
Heterophonic elements had been documented in Breton (a specific historical region in western France) dance songs. Historical sources about the musical traditions of Breton society documented the staunch resistance of their pagan rituals, songs and dances. For example, the ritual dancing around a fire on St John’s Eve has survived, despite a religious ban from the 600s (Kuter, 2000:561). The singing style tuilage, where two voices (“singer” – kaner and “countersinger” – diskaner) alternate and sometimes overlap, exists in Breton (and neighbouring regions).
Other region with the elements of polyphony is the Southeast France and particularly the Southwestern corner of France. Here (mostly in Bearn) there is a tradition of two-part singing mostly in parallel thirds, although the use of traditional modes (for example the use of natural 7th step) suggest older origins of this type of polyphony.

Austria represents one of the most important vocal polyphonic cultures of Central Europe. As Goertzen and Larkey wrote, “No country in Europe has folk music more thoroughly wedded to the diatonic major mode and the fleshing out of harmony than Austria” (2000:671).
In popular imagination Austria is the country of the yodel, an extraordinary style of singing with wide melodic jumps, when the singer rapidly changes his voice back and forth from the usual (chest) voice to the falsetto (head) voice. Of course, the Tyrolean yodel is by no means a unique singing tradition throughout the world, but perhaps because of its location in the centre of Europe, the Austrian yodel is the best known. The popularity of the yodel ousted the polyphonic singing style of Austrian Tyrolean Alps. Therefore, not everyone realizes that the yodel-singing style is primarily connected to the group polyphonic singing tradition in the Alps region.
All styles of Tyrolean yodel and particularly the supporting harmonies bear the obvious influence of European professional major-minor harmony (Haid, 2005). I am not aware of any Tyrolean yodeling examples that are not based on the T-S-D harmonic system. Maybe that’s why “It is difficult to distinguish between older yodeling styles and several recent waves of commercial yodels”.

Although the tradition of vocal polyphony is not represented very well in the historical sources of Germany, group singing is without a doubt one of the important elements of German traditional culture: “Viewed in terms of action, folk music lives not as a performance by a few musicians for many (as in concert halls), but in collective performance with a high degree of participation and interaction by all present” (Klusen, 1975). Most of the audience members are also performers: they sing, hum, sway, dance, or clap together. Most participants are only nominally interested in the origin and type of musical material. It is insignificant to them whether it is ‘art’ or ‘folk’ music, or derived from a subculture; whether it is composed for instruments or for voices; whether it is traditional or contemporary, or ‘inferior’ or ‘superior’ quality, already popular or freshly written, from an unknown or celebrated hand, or is transmitted orally or from printed or electronic media; and whether the text suits the situation or function at hand. The determining factor is whether the music or the dance provides the opportunity for performers and audience to participate in the immediate situation” (Schepping, 2000: 648).

There are a few hints about the presence of a polyphonic tradition in medieval Germany. In one of them, a monk from Salzburg, whose name was Hermann, in the second half of the 14th century wrote few polyphonic pieces based on drone polyphony, intending to create a new type of composition based on folk traditions, and in another similar case Oswald von Wolkenstein, who was also very much involved in traditional polyphonic traditions, used canonic polyphony in his compositions.
During the 1700s and 1800s the new pan-European harmonic system appeared, heavily based on the T-S-D (tonic-subdominant-dominant) progression, and during the 19th century this became popular throughout the European countries. The 1800s saw a great number of male choirs (LiedertafelI) forming in factories, schools etc.

Poland
According to the available materials, the main region for traditional polyphony is the Podhale region in the Tarra Mountains, southern Poland. Two-part polyphony with parallel thirds, and more interestingly, fifths, with the elements of Lydian scale has been documented here:
Survival of the tradition of polyphonic singing in the mountains is also evident according to Dahlig: “Only in the Carpathian area is polyphonic singing found. There, one singer initiates a song and after a few notes others join in: some take the main melody while the rest add a voice below” (Dahlig, 2000:703). According to this description this polyphonic style has elements of two-part heterophonic polyphony, with groups singing both parts and the number of parts changing from two to three. Some influence of European professional music is also evident in parallel thirds and specific “leading” seventh step (giving the music the feel of a European Dominant chord).

Slovakia
According to available data, the tradition of more contemporary polyphony is spread quite widely throughout the territory of Slovakia. It is mostly two-part singing in parallel thirds (mostly in Northwestern Slovakia). In the northern part fifths have a greater importance, and in the western part – thirds and sixths (Elschekova, 1963, 1981). Both parts are usually performed by groups of singers. At the very beginning of the songs (as in virtually all polyphonic cultures), the individual performer starts singing, joined later by others. In some cases the group starts together in unison, which is possibly a later tradition, as with folk music it is very unusual to coordinate the pitch and rhythm of the songs beforehand and to prepare for the beginning. Musical phrases usually finish on one note, in unison. As both parts are performed by groups of singers, the heterophonic division of parts is possible. In such cases a few three- or four-part chords appear in the musical texture. Perhaps the most developed form of heterophonic polyphony has been recorded in the mountainous central part of Slovakia:
And finally, in a few villages of the Northwestern part of Slovakia a tradition of drone polyphony with secondal dissonances and small-range melodies has been documented. The drone is rhythmic (it moves a major second up and down).

England
To feel the enjoyment of the informal group singing of the English, one needs to go to one of the famous “singing pubs” of England. “Traditional singing in harmony has been recorded extensively” (Gammon, 2000:327). Unfortunately, the singing styles that have been documented during the last 100 years bear obvious traces of the influence of European professional polyphony. Fortunately, historical sources provide very important information about the wide distribution of the tradition of polyphonic singing in medieval England and other countries of the British Isles. One of the earliest and certainly the most important information about polyphony in England (and in fact, in northern Europe) comes from Giraldus Cambrensis from around 1180-1200. He described in detail the part-singing traditions in northern England and Wales. Cambrensis believed the British islanders learned the part-singing tradition from the Danes and Norwegians. After this interesting bit of information (as there is no live tradition of vocal polyphony in contemporary Norway and Denmark) there is very little information before the 18th century.
Before going further let us listen to Cambrensis himself, as citing his famous passage became a common place in the books on music history, and would be shame not to have it in a book wholly dedicated to the vocal polyphony. Readers, who have read this passage many times, can omit it, but those who will be reading it for the first time, I would suggest to remember that we are listening to a highly educated thinker who is talking about the musical life in Wales and England at the end of the 12th century:
“As to their musical euphony, they do not sing uniformly as this is done elsewhere, but diversely with many rhythm and tunes, so that in a crowd of singers, such as is the custom among these people, you will hear as many different songs and differentiations of the voices as you see heads, and hear the organic melody coming together in one consonance with the smooth sweetness of B-flat.
“Moreover, in the northern part of Great Britain, that is across the Humber and on the border of Yorkshire, the English people who inhabit those parts employ the same kind of symphonious harmony in singing, but in only two parts: one murmuring below and the other in a like manner softly and pleasantly above. Both nations have acquired this peculiarity not by art by long usage, which has made it, as it were, natural. Moreover, it prevails in both countries and is now so deeply rooted there that nothing musical is performed simply, but only diversely among the former people and in two parts among the latter. And what is more remarkable, children scarcely beyond infancy, when their wails have barely turned into songs observe the same musical performance.

Information on polyphony in Sweden is mostly connected to polyphony in church music: “Some extant liturgical books used in Swedish religious institutions from 1300 to 1400 and containing music notations give evidence for polyphonic singing at the cathedral of Uppsala in 1298. King Gustav Vasa (reigned 1523 – 1560) eliminated papal control of Christianity in Sweden and introduced the Protestant faith. The reformation resulted in many handwritten hymnbooks that reflected local traditions; in 1697, the first official collection of hymns was published”. According to Ling, the tradition of folk choral singing (both in unison and polyphony) is still alive in Sweden. From the 1800s choral singing became widely popular and many major choral societies were established throughout Sweden. During this period “choral and solo vocal music dominated the local production and reception of music”.

Finding a live tradition of polyphonic singing in Iceland was one of the highlights of the study of European polyphony – both professional and folk. A live tradition of polyphony in Iceland was particularly important for musicologists studying medieval European polyphony, because of its clear connections to the earliest types of organum [Organum was the first type of European professional polyphony, that appeared at the end of the 9th – beginning of the 10th centuries]. Angel Hammerich published a pioneering article about the Icelandic two-part singing tradition twisongur, then Biarni Forstain published 42 examples of twisongur, and finally John Laif recorded on phonograph the examples of twisongur. Phonograph recordings proved the correctness of the transcriptions made by Forstain. The term twisongur literally means “two-singing”, and it is a traditional technique of the two-part performance of secular and sacred melodies. Hornbostel’s description of twisongur as “fifths organum with crossing parts” is quite accurate. Most of the time the parts move in parallel fifths in twisongur style, and at certain moment the parts shift places (the top part goes lower and the low part goes higher that the top part). Therefore the second part usually finishes with the note that the first part started at the beginning of the song. The leading genre of Icelandic traditional music, Rimur (epic songs), was also performed in twisongur style. Here are two typical examples of the earlier type of twisongur:
The tempo was usually very slow, and the sound of “empty” parallel fifths is very specific. Interestingly, in late medieval Europe parallel fifths were considered the biggest compositional mistake that a composer could make in composing polyphonic music. By the way, parallel fifths were considered a very serious mistake not only by Medieval European music theorists. I remember myself doing very much feared harmony tests at Tbilisi State Conservatory in the mid 1970s, and parallel fifths were still the most feared mistake for the students.

Another Baltic country, Latvia, could be considered the most polyphonic among the Baltic States. Although Latvian polyphonic traditions are not as internationally known and as dazzlingly unique as the Lithuanian canonic polytonal sutartines style, and although there is no such variety of polyphonic styles as in Lithuania, the Latvian tradition of polyphonic singing covers most of the ethnic territory of the Latvian state. The only region where no polyphonic recordings have been made is the Northeast part of the country. In the western part of Latvia the tradition of polyphonic singing is still well alive (as in the regions of Nica, Barta, Alsunga).
Interestingly, virtually the only type of polyphony recorded in the territory of Latvia (according to the works of Latvian ethnomusicologists) is drone polyphony. Written sources mention the tradition of drone polyphony in Latvia from the 16th and 17th centuries. The drone is mostly pedal, but there are instances of the rhythmic drone as well. There are different terms for the drone performer in Latvia: vilceja (“the one who drags”), duceja (“the one who gives a low, continuous droning sound”) and ruceja (“a grumbler, the one who murmurs”). The drone changes its pitch and moves always a major second up. The main melody is always sung by a solo performer, and the range of the main melody is very small (usually a third). The drone is always performed by a group of singers. Rhythmically Latvian drone polyphony is based on a simple duple metre (2/4). Two-part singing dominates: