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◆ NOTE
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 consonance’s 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
KIRNBERGER III TEMPERAMENT
These two temperaments are placed in between Meantone and Pythagorean. For music with few accidentals, this temperament produces the beautiful chords 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 “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.
After you have selected the desired temperament, please read the following section on selecting a key signature for the temperament before continuing.
26 | KAWAI DIGITAL PIANO |