Relevance of the study. The study of the fundamental principles of polyphonic thinking is an urgent task of modern theoretical musicology and it inextricably deals with the coverage of musical universals and understanding the interrelation of these phenomena in a diachronic aspect, in accordance with the different genre-stylistic and historical conditions of the polyphonic multi-voice writing. The use of the term “tectonics”, despite its systematic use in musicological discourse, calls for a refinement of its conceptual content and terminological boundaries (Latin “terminus” — “limit”, “boundary”) with its respect to the notion of architectonics that is not identical to it.The most important methodological impetus for the concept of the paper was S. Taneyev's conclusions about the “brackets” which unites the music system at various stages of its historical evolution. Among the most essential of them in the strict style of the polyphony, he notes the reception of imitation and the verbal text. Reflecting on the further ways of the musical system at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, S. Taneyev notes as the next main factor forming a major and minor tonality, which does not require any text or imitation in the function of the main connecting elements. On this basis, in the conditions of “omni-tonality” (F. J. Fetis) of the 20th century, S. Taneyev confidently predicts the inevitable further revival of polyphonic constructive techniques. Based on Taneyev's diachronic and genetic methods, the verbal text is considered by us as a historically conditioned component of a monody and as the bearing tectonic bracket — “prototekton” — of arising later vocal polyphony, which based on it.The problem of musical universals, which is concerned in the article of I. Pyaskovsky, devoted to the historical development of polyphonic treatment, is also topical for our study. I. Pyaskovsky offers a much broader interpretation of polyphonic treatment as a solid tradition of composing work with a primary source (in particular, monody), which can be reduced to two basic approaches at the level of writing (compositional techniques): a work with “commenting”, counterpointing, material and a processing of the original song's source. The methods of polyphonic work described by I. Pyaskovsky typologically stable in various historical and stylistic conditions with the original source have a direct relation to monody — both its initial impulse and simultaneously the most important musical universal, according to Yu. Konu. The result of thinking about the polyphonic treatment of monody was developed in the ideas of Yu. Kon. I. Pyaskovsky refers to these attributes as follows:The dominant function of the monody in the past is those cultures that have turned to polyphonic treatment.Transition to the polyphony, conditioned by the rhythm-intonation specificity of monody.The idea of counterpoint as the coordination of voices on the vertical.Presence of conditions and developed forms of notation fixation.The existence of a musical tradition in the historical conditions of treatment a monodic original source as a source material.Main objective of the study. Based on the listed above methodological guidelines, it becomes possible, firstly, to clarify the internal interrelationships of the categories of musical universals with the support tectonic clamps of the polyphony, and, secondly, their sequential diachronic analysis. Establishing the interdependence of these categories, we observe unconditionally unequal conceptual volume and a different cognitive orientation (this is reflected even on the etymological level). The doctrine of musical universals belongs, according to Yu. Kohn, to the philosophy of the art of sounds (the theory of music in expanded meaning), at that time tectonic level is an object of theoretical and practical study of diversified musical science (i. e. theory in the narrow sense). However, it is noticeable that there is something in common between these spheres, namely, the presence in their composition of a monody.Conclusions. The article considers common, particularly diachronic, structural tectonic techniques of polyphonic, especially non-imitative, polyphony, in their relationship with the general musical universals. It found that unlike “tectonics”, the concept of architectonics in art reflects the more typed principles of shape formation, dealing not with elements but with components of a composite structure. The steady mediated effect of musical universals on the tectonic level of polyphony is revealed. It is noted that monody is an integral internal formant of the polyphony, functionally embedded in tectonic framework of polyphony as the source, laid in its basis.