equal temperament

noun

Music.

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

Example Sentences

Major seconds and thirds are larger in Pythagorean intonation than in equal temperament, and minor seconds and thirds are smaller.

Read more on Literature

Here, “well-tempered” refers to Bach’s enthusiastic — and then quite edgy — pursuit of an “equal temperament,” a tuning that would allow all of the keys to be played.

Read more on Washington Post

In its simplest terms, just intonation means that the ratios between notes are whole numbers, rather than the irrational ratios that divide the octave in the familiar framework of equal temperament.

Read more on New York Times

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.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

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.

Read more on New York Times