(music) A musical temperament that generates all non-octave intervals from a stack of identical perfect fifths all tuned flat from their just ratio of 3/2. When the amount of flattening makes the major and minor thirds appropriate sizes, the syntonic comma is tempered out to a unison.
Used in a Sentence
meantone
Definition, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for meantone.
Editorial note
The French have continued to employ meantone and meantone-derived tuning well into the 19th century.
Examples11
Definitions1
Parts of speech1
Quick take
(music) A musical temperament that generates all non-octave intervals from a stack of identical perfect fifths all tuned flat from their just ratio of 3/2. When the amount of flattening makes the major and minor thirds appropriate sizes, the syntonic comma is tempered out to a unison.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of meantone gathered in one view.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for meantone.
noun
(music) A musical temperament that generates all non-octave intervals from a stack of identical perfect fifths all tuned flat from their just ratio of 3/2. When the amount of flattening makes the major and minor thirds appropriate sizes, the syntonic comma is tempered out to a unison.
Example sentences
The French have continued to employ meantone and meantone-derived tuning well into the 19th century.
Mozart, working in the late 18th century, 50 years after Bach, still used 1/6th comma meantone.
In both pythagorean tuning and meantone tuning, there is no enharmonic identity - C sharp does not equal D flat, etc.
My Roland digital piano has several temperaments it can use including meantone, just, pythagorean.
Bach was indeed a proponent of well tempered tuning, but his contemporary the great organ maker Gottfried Silbermann insisted on employing a form of meantone tuning in his organs.
This is also true for meantone tuning, a system of tuning which tempers the all fifths by a 1/4 of a syntonic comma in order to arrive at pure thirds (a 5/4 ratio interval).
In the 16th and 17th centuries, a harpsichord or organ with 12 keys to the octave would typically be tuned meantone with C sharp, E flat, F sharp, G sharp and B flat.
Both pythagorean tuning and meantone tuning are acyclical systems (that is, a sequence of 12 fifths does not make 7 octaves), but actually can be considered forms of equal tuning because all scales would sound the same (at least theoretically).
Werckmeister was soon followed by other theoreticians, and the issue of well tempered tuning versus meantone tuning, which was practically universal in Europe back then, was a matter of hot debate at the time, even as late as the French revolution.
Quote examples
- In the late 17th century people are beginning to explore less tempered versions of meantone, and Werckmeister is indeed the first to publish several methods of tuning which are "well tempered", i.e.
I would recommend experimenting with the traditional meantone tuning system if you're interested in this -- it offers almost as much flexibility as equal temperament (with 6 adjacent keys on the circle of fifths being free of wolf intervals), and it lets you play with "real thirds".
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use meantone in a sentence?
The French have continued to employ meantone and meantone-derived tuning well into the 19th century.
What does meantone mean?
(music) A musical temperament that generates all non-octave intervals from a stack of identical perfect fifths all tuned flat from their just ratio of 3/2. When the amount of flattening makes the major and minor thirds appropriate sizes, the syntonic comma is tempered out to a unison.
What part of speech is meantone?
meantone is commonly used as noun.