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equal temperament

American  

noun

Music.
  1. the division of an octave into 12 equal semitones, as in the tuning of a piano.


Example Sentences

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But it also loses in the process a richness, making me wonder what might have happened were it played in a more acoustically natural equal temperament.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2017

He had tuned his harpsichord not to the relatively smooth, equal temperament of modern times, he explained, but to a “severe” mean-tone temperament used in the early 17th century.

From New York Times ● Jan. 13, 2017

Meanwhile there was no such thing back then as equal temperament.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 29, 2016

“Learning a major scale in equal temperament, you’re internalizing an entire worldview,” he said.

From New York Times ● Dec. 16, 2016

A number of YouTube videos provide comparisons that you can listen to, for example comparisons of just intonation and equal temperament, or comparisons of various temperaments.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones

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