The musical traditions of Native Americans are stereotypically regarded as monophonic. Despite the presence of strong group-singing traditions in most American Indian traditional music, monophonic (solo, unison and often loosely heterophonic) singing predominates.
At the same time, unlike many of the other “monophonic” regions of the world, where the study of dominant monodic music totally pushed away any study of the elements of polyphony, quite a few American scholars (mostly musicologists and ethnomusicologists) contributed to the study of elements of part-singing among North American Indians (see the survey in Nettl, 1961).
According to the available sources, mostly summarized in a concise and very informative article by Bruno Nettl (1961), information about the polyphonic singing styles of different Indian peoples is quite abundant. Although some regions and peoples lack any references to polyphony, solid information is available on other regions and peoples. Most importantly, this information questions the existing general stereotype about the general monophonic nature of American Indian vocal singing traditions.
Among different regions of North America two regions are particularly rich in information about vocal polyphony: (1) the Northwest Coast, and (2) the East Coast.
Plenty of information indicates that the Northwest Coast Indians (particularly the Nootka and Salish) were familiar with a part-singing tradition, and particularly often used drone polyphony. Drone could be the highest part (as among the Makah) as well as the lowest part (Salish Indians). Makah used a so-called “metal pitch”, a drone that sounded on top of the melody. According to Densmore’s informants, the “metal pitch” [high pitch drone] was sung by individuals, mainly women, who “either did not know the song or wished to improve its quality” (Densmore, 1939:130). It is very interesting that the Makah would use a “metal pitch” drone to accompany a stranger when he would sing his own song for them. Densmore provides some very interesting information about the additional harmonic tones that Salish singers used to place during the long notes in the melody (Densmore, 1943:31). Abraham and Hornbostel transcribed this example of drone polyphony from Thomson River Indians:
Singers were divided into two groups (so both parts were sung in unisons). Some of them sang a melody, and others occasionally repeated the same note, a third lower than the main tone of the melody (Abraham & Hornbostel, 1922:32). 

The musical symbol of Central Asia is a unique polyphonic style, known by the names “overtone singing” or “throat singing”. A solo performer produces two different sounds simultaneously. This singing style has been found on a wide territory comprising Tuva, western Mongolia and Altay and Sayan mountain ranges. According to the information received from Yuri Sheikin from Yakutsk, there are few different distinct styles of overtone singing in this region:
(1) Northwestern Tuva is the most important region for this style, with 14 styles of singing (term – khoomei).
(2) Unlike western Tuva, eastern Tuva is much less known for overtone singing traditions, and singers here are far apart. Three styles have been documented here (the term khoomei is used here as well).
(3) Five styles of overtone singing have been recorded in Mountain Altay. Overtone singing in known here under the term kai.
(4) Three styles have been recorded among the Mountain Shoria. They are also known under the term kai.
(5) Khakassia has two styles of overtone singing, known as khai.
(6) One style of overtone singing has been documented in Yakutia as well, under the name khabarga.
(7) And finally, outside the Russian Federation, six styles of overtone singing have been documented in western Mongolia (under the term khoomei)

The region of the Middle East, according to the main elements of its musical cultures, unites a vast region, which comprises parts of three continents: parts of western and central Asia, northern Africa and a small part of Europe (the European part of Turkey). Garland Encyclopedia frames the Middle East within the regions from Northwestern Africa (Morocco) up to Kazakhstan and Northwestern China.
As imperfect as most generalizations are, we can characterize the Middle Eastern region as having the following features:
 Vocal polyphony does not play an important role in most of the musical cultures of this region;
 Traditions of very developed instrumental polyphony (particularly of the string instruments) are quite usual for many Middle Eastern musical cultures;
 Despite the absence of vocal polyphonic traditions, group singing (mostly in unison or in octaves, sometimes with heterophonic elements) is quite common in folk-singing traditions of this region;
 The Middle East is one of the most advanced regions of the world in terms of early professionalism and the role of the solo performer in musical culture;
 Although vocal music has primary importance in a musical culture (this idea is clearly expressed in the classifications of one of the greatest thinkers of humanity Al-Farabi), musical instruments, and particularly string instruments, play an important role. This idea is also clearly expressed in the writing of another great thinker of the Medieval Middle East – Ibn-Sina (Avicenna);
 Following a great tradition of writing about music from Ancient Greece, many of Middle Eastern musical cultures have a great tradition of theoretical works about music, with lengthy discussions ranging from the role of music in society to specific scales and melodic models. The music of Ancient Greece itself is considered by many to be a part of the Middle Eastern family of musical cultures;
 Also starting from Ancient Greece, Middle Eastern thinkers have long discussed the value of different kinds of music. There were suggestions that certain scales, modes or musical instruments should be banned (for example, Plato suggested a ban on the aulos, a double-reed aerophone). This tendency was dramatized after the advance of Islam, and resulted in a general disapproval (and sometimes a strict ban) of non-religious-related musical activities in some of the Middle Eastern countries. As a live example of such a ban, our friend and colleague from Monash University spent two years in an Iranian jail for performing classical music.

With its internationally renowned opera traditions and bel canto singing style so universally popular, Italy has long been a symbol of “beautiful singing”. Unlike some other European countries, where folk singing styles became the symbol of national musical identity, “rarely shared at the national level, folk song in Italy never became a national symbol. Instead, during the second half of the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century, opera and so-called Neapolitan popular song served such purposes” (Sorce Keller et al. 2000:604). Four main regions are distinguished in Italy: (1) North Italy, (2) central Italy, (3) the Mediterranean south and Sicily, and (4) Sardinia. The tradition of vocal polyphony is distributed in three out of the four regions: in north and central Italy and on Sardinia. Although the southern part is mostly monophonic, geographically more isolated Sicily has vocal polyphonic traditions. As a matter of fact, central Italy is more of a transitional region between the polyphonic north and monophonic south, so polyphonic singing decreases from north to south of Central Italy.
“Choral singing belongs mainly to the alpine area and the north, where a variable number of singers sing two, three, or four parts. The accompanying part sings below the leading part or, less commonly, above it. This type of polyphony, structures in thirds or sixths, is widespread from the southern German territories to the valley of the river Po, and into Slovenia, Dalmatia, and northern Croatia. In playfulness and intricacy of texture, the richest polyphonic forms include the tiir, from the town of Premana in Lombardy; the trallalero, in the area around Genoa, in which five (sometimes six) vocal parts imitate various instruments; and the bei in Tuscany. These styles are neither song forms nor song types, but polyphonic procedures applied to different kinds of songs” (Sorce Keller et al, 2000:610).

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).