monks in the monastery of St. Gallen have been singing for a long time. The lead singer even developed a notation so he could remember the songs. Not only the text, but the relative movement of the melody, however not absolute notes. This was all in a single tune (mono-phonic).
When we visited St. Gallen this summer, we also saw the first notation of polyphonic sheet music (see picture from movie below). It looked very nicely. Each voice had its quarter on a double-page. Our guide told us how the monks were resistant against picking up the “new way” of singing. It was even considered bad.
Supposedly, it took one hundred years for the monks to pick up four-part polyphonic singing.
I am not a musical expert but there are some awesome polyphonic tunes, but
- the beginning of Ronja Räubertochter: Ronja Räubertochter / Ronja Rövardotter (1984) Soundtrack: Intro - YouTube
- I have fond memories of a concert of the Smashing Pumpkins about in 2007 in Colmar, when the audience sang along in six-way singing
- The Paghjella, the traditional polyphonic singing in Corse, which according to Wikipedia has been developing from the Gregorian chants