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7
FUNCTION
B
UTT
ONS
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.
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 harmony.
Performers must be aware which key they are playing in when using this
temperament.
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
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 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.
The display will alternate between showing ‘tMP’ (Temperament) and a symbol to indicate which type of temperament
is in use.
Hold down both buttons
1
2
