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6
FUNCTION SETTINGS
6) TEMPERAMENT
The ES6 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 fi fths, 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 fi fths, 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 cer tain 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 TOUCH and TRANSPOSE buttons, then press the STRINGS/CHOIR button.
The LED indicators for the TOUCH, TRANSPOSE, and STRINGS/CHOIR buttons will start to fl ash, indicating
that the Temperament function has been selected.
The name of the function ‘tMP’ (Temperament) and the current settings will be shown in the LED display.
2
Press and hold both buttons
1
Press the STRINGS/CHOIR button
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