Baroque Era: Musical Styles

During the Baroque era, composers explored new musical forms.  Compositions became more complex, using new types of melodies and harmonic progressions.  Composers also created music for new types of ensembles and instrument combinations. 
Some of the most significant developments were the new forms of music. These forms included the fugue, canon, chorales and pieces with new variations on a bass line. Other instrumental forms such as the sonata and concerto were more formalized.
Counterpoint found its true definition in the Baroque era. When there are multiple melodic lines happening at the same time, the music is considered to be contrapuntal. This is really another name for polyphony. Usually, polyphony is used to describe vocal music and counterpoint is used to describe instrumental music.

Listen to the example below: