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MERSENNE PURE TEMPERAMENT (Major)
MERSENNE PURE TEMPERAMENT (minor)
This temperament, which eliminates dissonances for thirds and
fifths, is still popular for choral music because of its perfect har-
mony. You need to be aware what key you are playing in with this
temperament. Any key modulation will result in dissonances. When
you play music in a particular key, you need to match the key of the
temperament as well. 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 elimi-
nate 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 II TEMPERAMENT
KIRNBERGER I] 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 natu-
rally to the ears. This "Stretched" equal temperament is a practical
variation of the "unstretched" equal temperament, which was in-
vented on a mathematical basis.
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