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Quarter-comma Meantone
Quarter-comma meantone, or -comma meantone, was the most common meantone temperament in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was sometimes used later. In this system the perfect fifth is flattened by one quarter of a syntonic comma with respect to its just intonation used in Pythagorean tuning ( frequency ratio the result is \tfrac \times \left(\tfrac\right)^ = \sqrt \approx 1.49535, or a fifth of 696.578  cents. (The 12th power of that value is 125, whereas 7 octaves is 128, and so falls 41.059 cents short.) This fifth is then iterated to generate the diatonic scale and other notes of the temperament. The purpose is to obtain justly intoned major thirds (with a frequency ratio equal to It was described by Pietro Aron in his ''Toscanello de la Musica'' of 1523, by saying the major thirds should be tuned to be "sonorous and just, as united as possible". Later theorists Gioseffo Zarlino and Francisco de Salinas described the tuning with mathematical ...
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Meantone Temperament
Meantone temperaments are musical temperaments; that is, a variety of Musical tuning#Tuning systems, tuning systems constructed, similarly to Pythagorean tuning, as a sequence of equal fifths, both rising and descending, scaled to remain within the same octave. But rather than using perfect fifths, consisting of frequency ratios of value 3:2, these are ''tempered'' by a suitable factor that narrows them to ratios that are slightly less than 3:2, in order to bring the major or minor thirds closer to Just intonation, the just intonation ratio of 5:4 or 6:5 , respectively. Among temperaments constructed as a sequence of fifths, a regular temperament is one in which all the fifths are chosen to be of the same size. Twelve-tone equal temperament () is obtained by making all semitones the same size, with each equal to one-twelfth of an octave; i.e. with ratios . Relative to Pythagorean tuning, it narrows the perfect fifths by about 2 cents (music), cents or of a Pythagorean co ...
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Staff Position
In Western musical notation, the staff"staff" in the Collins English Dictionary
"in British English: also called: stave; plural: staffs or staves"
"staff" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
/ref> ( UK also stave; : ''staffs'' or ''staves''), also occasionally referred to as a pentagram, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch ...
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Minor Third
In music theory, a minor third is a interval (music), musical interval that encompasses three half steps, or semitones. Staff notation represents the minor third as encompassing three staff positions (see: interval (music)#Number, interval number). The minor third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is called ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two: the major third spans an additional semitone. For example, the interval from A to C is a minor third, as the note C lies three semitones above A. Coincidentally, there are three staff positions from A to C. Diminished third, Diminished and augmented thirds span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (two and five). The minor third is a skip (music), skip melodically. Notable examples of ascending minor thirds include the opening two notes of "Greensleeves" and of "Light My Fire". The minor third may be derived from the Harmonic series (music), harmonic series as the interva ...
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Minor Sixth
In music theory, a minor sixth is a musical interval encompassing six staff positions (see Interval number for more details), and is one of two commonly occurring sixths (the other one being the major sixth). It is qualified as ''minor'' because it is the smaller of the two: the minor sixth spans eight semitones, the major sixth nine. For example, the interval from A to F is a minor sixth, as the note F lies eight semitones above A, and there are six staff positions from A to F. Diminished and augmented sixths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (seven and ten respectively). Equal temperament In 12-tone equal temperament (12-ET), the minor sixth is enharmonically equivalent to the augmented fifth. It occurs in first inversion major and dominant seventh chords and second inversion minor chords. It is equal to eight semitones, i.e. a ratio of 28/12:1 or simplified to 22/3:1 (about 1.587), or 800 cents. Just temperament ...
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Diminished Fifth
Diminished may refer to: *Diminution In Western culture, Western music and music theory, diminution (from Medieval Latin ''diminutio'', alteration of Latin ''deminutio'', decrease) has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment (music), embellishment in whic ... in music * "Diminished" (R.E.M. song), from the 1998 album ''Up'' *''Diminished'', a 2024 album by twlv {{disambiguation ...
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31 Equal Temperament
In music, 31 equal temperament, which can also be abbreviated (31 tone ) or (equal division of the octave), also known as tricesimoprimal, is the tempered scale derived by dividing the octave into 31 equally-proportioned steps (equal frequency ratios). Each step represents a frequency ratio of , or 38.71  cents (). is a very good approximation of quarter-comma meantone temperament. More generally, it is a regular diatonic tuning in which the tempered perfect fifth is equal to 696.77 cents, as shown in Figure 1. On an isomorphic keyboard, the fingering of music composed in is precisely the same as it is in any other syntonic tuning (such as so long as the notes are spelled properly—that is, with no assumption of enharmonicity. History and use Division of the octave into 31 steps arose naturally out of Renaissance music theory; the lesser diesis – the ratio of an octave to three major thirds, 128:125 or 41.06 cents – was app ...
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Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord. In Western music, intervals are most commonly differences between notes of a diatonic scale. Intervals between successive notes of a scale are also known as scale steps. The smallest of these intervals is a semitone. Intervals smaller than a semitone are called microtones. They can be formed using the notes of various kinds of non-diatonic scales. Some of the very smallest ones are called commas, and describe small discrepancies, observed in some tuning systems, between enharmonically equivalent notes such as C and D. Intervals can be arbitrarily small, and even imperceptible to the human ear. In physical terms, an interval is the ratio between two sonic fr ...
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Dissonance And Consonance
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and Music theory, music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, : "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term ''sonance'' has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms ''consonance'' and ''d ...
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Wolf Interval
In music theory, the wolf fifth (sometimes also called Procrustean fifth, or imperfect fifth) is a particularly dissonant musical interval spanning seven semitones. Strictly, the term refers to an interval produced by a specific tuning system, widely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the quarter-comma meantone temperament. More broadly, it is also used to refer to similar intervals (of close, but variable magnitudes) produced by other tuning systems, including Pythagorean and most meantone temperaments. When the twelve notes within the octave of a chromatic scale are tuned using the quarter-comma meantone systems of temperament, one of the twelve intervals apparently spanning seven semitones is actually a diminished sixth, which turns out to be much wider than the in-tune genuine fifths, In mean-tone systems, this interval is usually from C to A or from G to E but can be moved in either direction to favor certain groups of keys. The eleven perfect fifths ...
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Well Temperament
Well temperament (also good temperament, circular or circulating temperament) is a type of musical temperament, tempered musical tuning, tuning used for keyboard instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The term is modeled on the German word ''wohltemperiert''. This word also appears in the title of Johann Sebastian Bach, J. S. Bach's famous composition "Das wohltemperierte Klavier", ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''. Origins As used in the 17th century, the term "well tempered" meant that the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard were tuned in such a way that it was possible to play music in all Major and minor, major or Major and minor, minor key (music), keys that were commonly in use, without sounding perceptibly out of tune. One of the first attestations of the concept of "well tempered" is found in a treatise in German by the music theorist Andreas Werckmeister. In the subtitle of his ''Orgelprobe'', from 1681, he writes: The words and were subseq ...
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12 Tone Equal Temperament
12 equal temperament (12-ET) is the musical system that divides the octave into 12 parts, all of which are equally tempered (equally spaced) on a logarithmic scale, with a ratio equal to the 12th root of 2 (\sqrt 2/math> ≈ 1.05946). That resulting smallest interval, the width of an octave, is called a semitone or half step. Twelve-tone equal temperament is the most widespread system in music today. It has been the predominant tuning system of Western music, starting with classical music, since the 18th century, and Europe almost exclusively used approximations of it for millennia before that. It has also been used in other cultures. In modern times, 12-ET is usually tuned relative to a standard pitch of 440 Hz, called A440, meaning one note, A4 (the A in the 4th octave of a typical 88-key piano), is tuned to 440 hertz and all other notes are defined as some multiple of semitones apart from it, either higher or lower in frequency. The standard pitch has not always been ...
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Minor Second
A semitone, also called a minor second, half step, or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent notes in a 12-tone scale (or half of a whole step), visually seen on a keyboard as the distance between two keys that are adjacent to each other. For example, C is adjacent to C; the interval between them is a semitone. In a 12-note approximately equally divided scale, any interval can be defined in terms of an appropriate number of semitones (e.g. a whole tone or major second is 2 semitones wide, a major third 4 semitones, and a perfect fifth 7 semitones). In music theory, a distinction is made between a diatonic semitone, or minor second (an interval encompassing two different staff positions, e.g. from C to D) and a chromatic semitone or augmented unison (an interval between two notes at the same staff position, e.g. fro ...
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