During the Renaissance, there was a great interest in humanism. People were more interested in making their life better rather than being good for the next life. The art reflects that the human body was beautiful thing.
Music during this time begins to sound sweet, and the jerky italian rhythms and the complex counterpoint that we saw in the Dark Ages is gone. The church is still monitoring the music that is composed so the music is not of the people. Composers started composing using 3rds and 6ths; the theorist didn't like using 3rds, but since they thought they sounded so sweet they eventually became acceptable. Eventually the French started composing 2 against 3.
The music of this time had four voices: contus, tenor, altus, and basos. In the early renaissance the altus and the basos voices were backup voices, eventually they because as important as the upper voices.
Bellman, Joanthan. "September 24th, 2003 Lecture for History of Music." University of Northern Colorado, Studio B, Greeley 24 Sep. 2003
Clark, Jesse. "Fluteinfo.com - History, Greeks." FluteInfo.com 07 Oct. 2003 <http://www.fluteinfo.com/History/Greeks/index.html> Accessed: