Equal temperament Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Equal temperament is a scheme of musical tuning in which the octave is divided into a series of equal steps (equal frequency ratios). The best known example of such a system is twelve-tone equal temperament, sometimes abbreviated to 12-TET, which is nowadays used in most Western music. Other equal temperaments do exist (some music has been written in 31-TET for example), but they are so rare that when people use the term equal temperament it is usually understood that they are talking about the twelve tone variety.The distance between each step and the next is aurally the same for any two adjacent steps, though, because steps form a geometric sequence, the difference in frequency increases from one to the next. A linear sequence of one frequency difference would create ever smaller intervals (ratios), such as the harmonic series. See also logarithmic scale.
| Table of contents |
|
2 Twelve-tone equal temperament 3 Non-12 TET 4 See also 5 Sources 6 External links |
The first person known to introduce equal temperament is Chu Tsai-Yu in the Ming Dynasty, who published a theory of the temperament in 1584. Later, French mathematcian Marin Mersenne invented the idea of equal temperament, independantly from China, in 1636.
Twelve tone equal temperament was designed to permit the playing of music in all keys with an equal amount of mis-tuning in each, while still approximating just intonation. This allows much more facile harmonic motion, while losing some subtlety of intonation. True equal temperament was not available to musicians before about 1870 because scientific tuning and measurement was not available. And in fact, from about 1450 to about 1800 musicians tolerated even less mistuning in the most common keys, like C major. Instead, they used approximations that emphasized the tuning of thirds or fifths in these keys, such as Meantone temperament.
At the time equal temperament was beginning to take place, some people started to perceive slight mis-tuning of the music as a disgrace. There were opposers to equal temperament, called "Purists", who worried that the temperament would degrade the purity of each chord; hence degrades the purity of music. The composers against equal temperaments include Giuseppe Tartini.
On the other hands, J. S. Bach wrote The Well-Tempered Clavier to demonstrate the musical possibilities of well temperament. There is some reason to believe that when composers and theoreticians of this era wrote of the "colors" of the keys, they described the subtly different dissonances of particular tuning methods, though it is difficult to determine with any exactness the actual tunings used in different places at different times by any composer.
In fact, equal temperament does have weak point in tonal music. Group of musicians such as string ensemble or a capella, where tuning by microtones can be possible simultaneously during concerts, prefer to tune in just temperament in order to maximize the effect of chord progression. Other instruments, such as wind, keyboard, and fretted-instruments, use equal temperament or quasi-equal temperament, when the instruments have technical limitations to be tuned exactly equal. The dissonance of such temperaments is known to be noticed by average audience especially at the lower register. This had somewhat constrained composers in the classical and romantic era to write chords narrower than octave for the left hand in the keyboard music, in which the examples in cello parts of string quartets are more liberal.
In the atonal music, such as that written with the twelve tone technique or serialism, or tonal music, which all the twelve tones in an octave are treated as "equal," the well temperament gains majority than other temperaments.
The ratio between two adjacent semitones can be found with a few steps:
History
Twelve-tone equal temperament
Therefore, the ratio between two adjacent frequencies is equal to the twelfth root of two or approximately 1.05946309 to one.
The half tone interval:
is also known as 100 cent. 1 cent is therefore the ratio between two tone frequencies with an interval of one hundredth of an equal-tempered semitone.
| Tone | C1 | C# | D | Eb | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | Bb | B | C2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cents | 0 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900 | 1000 | 1100 | 1200 |
12-TET allows the use of integer notation and modulo 12, and this allows for proofs concerning pitch.
The following table shows the values of the intervals of 12 TET, along with one interval from just intonation that each approximates, and the percentage by which they differ:
| Name | Exact value in 12-TET | Decimal value | Just intonation interval | Percent difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unison | 1 | 1.000000 | 1 = 1.000000 | 0.00% |
| Minor second | 1.059463 | 16/15 = 1.066667 | -0.68% | |
| Major second | 1.122462 | 9/8 = 1.125000 | -0.23% | |
| Minor third | 1.189207 | 6/5 = 1.200000 | -0.91% | |
| Major third | 1.259921 | 5/4 = 1.250000 | +0.79% | |
| Perfect fourth | 1.334840 | 4/3 = 1.333333 | +0.11% | |
| Diminished fifth | 1.414214 | 7/5 = 1.400000 | +1.02% | |
| Perfect fifth | 1.498307 | 3/2 = 1.500000 | -0.11% | |
| Minor sixth | 1.587401 | 8/5 = 1.600000 | -0.79% | |
| Major sixth | 1.681793 | 5/3 = 1.666667 | +0.90% | |
| Minor seventh | 1.781797 | 16/9 = 1.777778 | +0.23% | |
| Major seventh | 1.887749 | 15/8 = 1.875000 | +0.68% | |
| Octave | 2.000000 | 2/1 = 2.000000 | 0.00% |
These mappings from equal temperament to just intonation are by no means unique. The minor seventh, for example, can be meaningfully said to approximate both 16/9 and 9/5, depending on context or simultaneously in a chord -- and probably even 7/4.
Five and seven tone equal temperament, 240 and 171 cent steps relatively, seem the most common outside of 12-tET. A Thai xylophone measured by Morton (1974) "varied only plus or minus 5 cents," from 7-tET. A Ugandan Chop xylophone measured by Haddon (1952) also tuned to 171 cent steps. Gamelans are tuned to 5-tET according to Kunst (1949), but according to Hood (1966) and McPhee (1966) their tuning varies widely and according to Tenzer (2000) contain stretched octaves. It is now well-accepted that of the two primary tuning systems in Gamelan music, Slendro and Pelog, only Slendro somewhat resembles 5-tone equal temperament while Pelog, highly unequal, can be roughly approximated by a subset of 9-, 16-, or 23-tone equal temperament. However, a Ugandan harp and women singing unaccompanied, measured with a Stroboconn and variations of 15 and 5 cents relatively by Wachsmann (1950). ( <-- that looks like an unintelligible sentence fragment -- the author should fix it.) A South American Indian scale from a preinstrumental culture measured by Boiles (1969) featured 175 cent equal temperament which stretches the octave slightly as with instrumental gamelan music.
The quarter tone scale or 24-tET is, similarly, based on powers of . Other equal divisions of the octave, though, can be better considered temperaments. 19-tET and especially 31-tET are extended varieties of Meantone temperament and approximate most just intonation intervals considerably better than 12-tET. They have been used sporadically since the 16th century, with 31-tET particularly popular in Holland, there advocated by Christiaan Huygens and Adriaan Fokker. 53-tET is much better still at approximating the traditional just intonation consonances, but has had very little use. It doesn't fit the Meantone mold that shaped the development of Western harmony and tonality. In 53-tET, most traditional compositions would necessitate subtle microtonal pitch shifts or a drifting pitch level in order to make use of the tuning's excellent just intonation triads. 55-tET, not as close to just intonation, was a bit closer to common practice. As an excellent representative of the variety of meantone temperament popular in the 18th century, 55-tET it was considered ideal by Georg Philipp Telemann and other prominent musicians. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's surviving violin lessons conform closely to such a model.
In the 20th century, standardized Western pitch and notation practices having been placed on a 12-tET foundation made the quarter tone scale a much more popular microtonal tuning. A further extension of 12-tET is 72-tET, which though not a Meantone tuning, approximates most just intonation intervals, including non-traditional ones like 7/4, 9/7, 11/5, 11/6 and 11/7, better. 72-tET has been taught, written and performed in practice, for example by Joe Maneri and his students -- whose atonal inclinations typically avoid any reference to just intonation intervals whatsoever. Still other equal temperaments occupying more than a few musicians include 5-tET, 7-tET, 15-tET, 22-tET, and 48-tET.
More generally, every step in n tone equal temperament is 1200/n cents. However, if one wishes to create an equal tempered scale that does not repeat at the octave, a scale with n equal steps in a pseudo-octave p is based on the ratio r
Wendy Carlos created two equal tempered scales for the title track of her album Beauty In The Beast, the Alpha and Beta scales. Beta splits a perfect fourth into two equal parts, which creates a scale where each step is almost 64 cents. Alpha does the same to a minor third to create a scale of 78 cent steps.
The equal tempered version of the Bohlen-Pierce scale consists of the ratio 3:1, 1902 cents, conventionally an octave and a just fifth, used as a tritave, and split into a thirteen tone equal temperament where each step is
Non-12 TET
This still may be easier to calculate in cents, for instance the pseudo-octave of ratio 2.1:1 is an interval of 1284 cents. Equal tempered scales can also be generated simply by picking the number of cents that each step will consist of.
or 146.3 cents. This provides a very close match to justly tuned ratios consisting only of odd numbers.
Australian aboriginal music extensively measured by Ellis (1965) was based on arithmetic scales (the harmonic series is an arithmetic scale, though presumably the Australian scales began an interval smaller than an octave) with an equal separation in hertz.
See also
Sources
External links
Music of Sacred Temperament
This is an Article on Equal temperament. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Equal temperament