Heterophony is a musical texture in which a single melody is played or sung simultaneously by multiple voices, each of which perform the melody slightly differently. The differences can include instrumentation, tempo, rhythm and embellishments.
This contrasts with monophony, which is just a single voice, with homophony, which is music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, and with polyphony, which is a texture consisting of several independent melodic voices. Heterophony is common in traditional music in many cultures, but is less prominent in Western classical music.