Kawai EP2 Owner's Manual page 24

BRIEF EXPLANATION OF TEMPERAMENTS
NOTE:
EQUAL TEMPERAMENT (PIANO ONLY) —_
This is the default temperament. If a piano sound is selected the
tuning is stretched like an acoustic piano (EQUAL TEMPERA- 5
MENT). 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.
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If a piano sound is used in a layer with any other sound then both sounds will use the EQUAL
TEMPERAMENT (Stretched) tuning.
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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).
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- p —
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 IH TEMPERAMENT
KIRNBERGER IH 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.
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