Kawai CN33 manual Brief Explanation of Temperaments

9) TEMPERAMENT

The CN33 digital piano offers immediate access to a variety of musical temperaments popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. It may prove interesting and educational to experiment with different temperaments, other than the modern ‘equal temperament’ standard this is dominant in music today.

BRIEF EXPLANATION OF TEMPERAMENTS

EQUAL TEMPERAMENT (PIANO ONLY)

This is the default temperament. If a piano sound is selected the tuning is stretched like an acoustic piano (EQUAL TEMPERAMENT). If any other type of sound is selected the tuning will be EQUAL (FLAT). An explanation of EQUAL TEMPERAMENT and EQUAL TEMPERAMENT (FLAT) is provided later in this section.

If a piano sound is used in a layer with any other sound, then both sounds will use the EQUAL TEMPERAMENT (stretched) tuning.

7 FUNCTION

BUTTONS

MERSENNE PURE TEMPERAMENT	This temperament, which eliminates dissonances for thirds and fifths, is still
(MAJOR)	popular for choral music because of its perfect harmony.
	Performers must be aware which key they are playing in when using this
MERSENNE PURE TEMPERAMENT	temperament.
(MINOR)	Any key modulation will result in dissonances. When playing music in a particular
	key, the key of the temperament must also be correctly matched.
	When playing in a major key select Pure (Major) and when playing in a minor
	key select Pure (minor).
PYTHAGOREAN TEMPERAMENT	This temperament, which uses mathematical ratios to eliminate dissonance
	for fifths, is very limited for use with chords, but it produces very characteristic
	melodic lines.
MEANTONE TEMPERAMENT	This temperament, which uses a mean between a major and minor whole tone to
	eliminate dissonance for thirds, was devised to eliminate the lack of consonances
	experienced with certain fifths for the Mersenne pure temperament. It produces
	chords that are more beautiful than those with the equal temperament.
WERCKMEISTER III TEMPERAMENT	These two temperaments are placed in between Meantone and Pythagorean.
	For music with few accidentals, this temperament produces the beautiful chords
KIRNBERGER III TEMPERAMENT	of the mean tone, but as accidentals increase, the temperament produces the
	characteristic melodies of the Pythagorean temperament. It is used primarily for
	classical music written in the Baroque era to revive the original characteristics.
EQUAL TEMPERAMENT (FLAT)	This is an ‘unstretched’ equal temperament that divides the scale into twelve equal
	semitones. This produces the same chordal intervals in all twelve keys, and has
	the advantage of limitless modulation of the key. However the tonality of each
	key becomes less characteristic and no chord is in pure consonance.
EQUAL TEMPERAMENT	This is the most popular piano temperament. The hearing ability of a human is
	uneven and is not as accurate with high frequency and low frequency as it is
	with the middle range. This temperament’s tuning is stretched to compensate
	for this so the sound will be heard naturally to the ears. This ‘stretched’ equal
	temperament is a practical variation of the ‘unstretched’ equal temperament
	which was invented on a mathematical basis.

…Step 1

Press and hold the TRANSPOSE and USB buttons, then press the STRINGS button.

2	1
	Hold down both buttons

The display will alternate between showing ‘tMP’ (Temperament) and a symbol to indicate which type of temperament

is in use.