What Temperament Did Bach Use?

Who invented equal temperament?

The idea of equal temperament had its most effective advocates among German musicians and theorists, beginning with Andreas Werckmeister in the early 18th century.

Did Bach invent equal temperament?

Contrary to what you’ve been taught, Bach did not compose the Well Tempered Clavier to promote the equal tempered tuning system. Equal temperament actually did not come into use until the *20th* century . ... Well temperament represented a departure from the various meantone tunings that were used in earlier music.

What came before equal temperament?

Before Meantone temperament became widely used in the Renaissance, the most commonly used tuning system was Pythagorean tuning . Pythagorean tuning was a system of just intonation that tuned every note in a scale from a progression of pure perfect fifths.

Is equal temperament out of tune?

One of those tunings was already known to the ancients: equal temperament. Here the poison is distributed equally through the system: The distance between each interval is mathematically the same, so each interval is equally in, and slightly out of, tune.

What is the difference between just intonation and equal temperament?

Just intonation requires tuning your instrument for a specific key. With standard equal temperament, you can play further down the neck in another key and not end up with different sound quality intervals between notes.

Why is an octave divided into 12?

The idea behind twelve is to build up a collection of notes using just one ratio. The advantage to doing so is that it allows a uniformity that makes modulating between keys possible .

Is a guitar equal tempered?

Guitars are tuned to ‘equal temperament’ . The basic way to understand this is that the 12 musical notes are evenly split up, which allows us to use straight frets on a guitar. ... This means you need to fret each note and adjust each string to make sure each note rings out perfectly in tune.

Who invented just intonation?

Harry Partch was the first such composer. He defined his own scale with 43 pitches to the octave, and invented his own instruments to play it.

When was 12 tone equal temperament invented?

While China had previously come up with approximations for 12-TET, Zhu Zaiyu was the first person to mathematically solve twelve-tone equal temperament, which he described in his Fusion of Music and Calendar 律暦融通 in 1580 and Complete Compendium of Music and Pitch (Yuelü quan shu 樂律全書) in 1584.

How far off is equal temperament?

The equal tempered scale is the common musical scale used at present, used for the tuning of pianos and other instruments of relatively fixed scale. It divides the octave into 12 equal semitones. It is common practice to state musical intervals in cents, where 100¢ is defined as one equal tempered semitone.

Why is piano always out of tune?

Many factors cause pianos to go out of tune, particularly atmospheric changes . For instance, changes in humidity will affect the pitch of a piano; high humidity causes the sound board to swell, stretching the strings and causing the pitch to go sharp, while low humidity has the opposite effect.

What is true temperament?

True Temperament is a revolutionary new approach to the guitar’s fretboard , delivering an accuracy of fret scaling like never before. ... The True Temperament fretting system is THE solution for guitarists seeking as close to perfect as possible guitar intonation.

Do violinists play in equal temperament?

With the four strings of the violin tuned to equal temperament , the instrument will be in tune with the piano but its acoustic properties will be compromised. The sound will not ring with sympathetic vibrations. There are two other systems of tuning common on the violin – just intonation and expressive intonation.

What instruments use equal temperament?

The piano keyboard is the standard example of the equal tempered scale, and the frets on a modern guitar are also placed to fix the instrument into the equal tempered scale.

Do orchestras play in equal temperament?

The violin, viola, and cello are tuned to beatless just perfect fifths and ensembles such as string quartets and orchestras tend to play in fifths based Pythagorean tuning or to compensate and play in equal temperament , such as when playing with other instruments such as the piano.