DESCANT, in music, the art of composing in several parts. See COMPOSITION.
Descant is three-fold, viz. plain, figurative, and double.
Plain Descant is the ground-work and foundation of all musical compositions, consisting altogether in the orderly placing of many concords, answering to simple counterpoint. See COUNTERPOINT.
Figurative or Florid Descant, is that part of an air of music wherein some discords are concerned, as well, though not so much, as concords. This may be term-
ed the ornamental and rhetorical part of music, in regard that there are introduced all the varieties of points, syncopes, diversities of measures, and whatever is capable of adorning the composition.