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Mean Tone

Mean-tone temperament is a system of tuning musical instruments where the major third intervals are divided into two equal whole tones, rather than the unequal intervals of just intonation. This is achieved by slightly altering the size of other intervals such as fifths and fourths. There are different variations of mean-tone temperament that alter intervals by different amounts, such as 1/4 comma or 1/5 comma mean-tone temperament. Mean-tone temperament was commonly used for keyboard instruments in the Renaissance and Baroque eras before the adoption of equal temperament.

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101 views

Mean Tone

Mean-tone temperament is a system of tuning musical instruments where the major third intervals are divided into two equal whole tones, rather than the unequal intervals of just intonation. This is achieved by slightly altering the size of other intervals such as fifths and fourths. There are different variations of mean-tone temperament that alter intervals by different amounts, such as 1/4 comma or 1/5 comma mean-tone temperament. Mean-tone temperament was commonly used for keyboard instruments in the Renaissance and Baroque eras before the adoption of equal temperament.

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Grove Music Online

Mean-tone
Mark Lindley

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.18222
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

A system of temperament or a tuning of the scale, particularly on


instruments lacking any capacity for flexibility of intonation during
performance, which differs from the equal-tempered system
normally used on such instruments today. In its most restricted
sense the term refers, like its German equivalent mitteltönige
Temperatur, to a tuning with pure major 3rds (frequency ratio 5:4)
divided into two equal whole tones (whereas in Just intonation there
are two sizes of whole tone corresponding to the ratios 9:8 and
10:9); to achieve this the tuner must temper the 5ths and 4ths,
making the 5ths smaller and the 4ths larger than pure by a quarter
of the syntonic comma, hence the label ‘¼-comma mean-tone’, a
more specific name for the same kind of tuning.

A broader and equally legitimate use of the term (dating back to


such 18th-century writers as Sauveur and Estève) includes any
Renaissance or Baroque keyboard tuning in which a major 3rd
slightly smaller or, more often, slightly larger than pure is divided
into two equal whole tones (see Table 1 ). In -comma mean-tone
temperament, for example, the major 3rds are -comma smaller than
pure, whereas in -comma mean-tone they are -comma larger and in
⅙-comma mean-tone they are ⅓-comma larger. In each case the
major 6th (or minor 3rd) is perforce tempered the sum of the
amounts by which the major 3rd and 4th are rendered larger than
pure; and a 12-note scale will include one sour ‘wolf 5th’
considerably larger than pure because the other 11 are tempered
more than enough to make a ‘circle’ of identical 5ths as in equal
temperament. Hence the tuner about to set a mean-tone
temperament must choose not only a particular shade of mean-tone
(e.g. ¼- or ⅕-comma) but also a particular disposition (e.g. with the
wolf 5th at C♯–A♭, G♯–E♭ or D♯–B♭).

In all mean-tone temperaments the diatonic semitone is larger than


the chromatic semitone, so that E♭ is higher than D♯, A♭ higher than
G♯ and so forth; and a diminished 7th (e.g. G♯–F) is larger than a
major 6th (A♭–F), a diminished 4th (G♯–C) larger than a major 3rd
(A♭–C), etc. Triads generally sound more resonant in a mean-tone
temperament than in equal temperament, though in varying degrees
depending on the musical style, the instrument, the acoustical
circumstances and the precise shade of mean-tone used. The most
resonant shades are generally those in which the major and minor
3rds are tempered least; but these ( - or ¼-comma mean-tone) also
have the largest diatonic semitones and hence the lowest leading
notes. Although some 17th-century musicians considered the large
diatonic semitone of ¼-comma mean-tone to be, as Mersenne (1636–

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7) put it, one of the greatest sources of beauty and variety in music,
most musicians today would be likely to prefer the smaller diatonic
semitones of equal temperament or Pythagorean intonation; a
modern connoisseur might therefore find in ⅕- or ⅙-comma mean-
tone a nice compromise between the relative virtues of ¼-comma
mean-tone and equal temperament. For the history of mean-tone
temperaments in performing practice, see Temperaments; see also
Padgham, Collins and Parker (1979).

Various shadings of regular mean-tone temperament correspond


closely to certain divisions of the octave into more than 12 equal
parts. A number of 18th-century theorists aware of these manifold
possibilities sought to show that some particular division of the
octave with intervals approximating to some shade or other of mean-
tone was better than all the others. In the 16th and early 17th
centuries Salinas, Costeley and Titelouze had used the 19-tone
division (equivalent to ⅓-comma mean-tone), and in 1691 Christiaan
Huygens had advocated the 31-part division (corresponding to ¼-
comma mean-tone), which Vicentino may have used in the 1550s
(see Lindley, 1982). Sauveur (1701) preferred the 43-part division
(corresponding to ⅕-comma mean-tone); Henfling (1710) and Smith
(1749) the 50-part division (corresponding to 5/18-comma mean-
tone); Telemann (1743) and Romieu (1758) the 55-part division
(corresponding to ⅙-comma mean-tone); and Riccati (1762) the 74-
tone division (corresponding to -comma mean-tone). Estève (1755)
said that the most perfect system was ‘between that of 31 and that
of 43’, by which he meant some shade of mean-tone between ¼- and
⅕-comma.

The term ‘mean-tone temperament’ and its Italian equivalent


systema participato have sometimes been used to refer to certain
schemes in which only the seven naturals of the keyboard (and
perhaps not even all of them) conform to any of the regular mean-
tone patterns discussed above; the characteristics of such irregular
tunings are described in Temperaments, and in Well-tempered
clavier.

Bibliography
PraetoriusSM, ii

L. Rossi: Sistema musico (Perugia, 1666), 58

J.B. Romieu: ‘Mémoire théorique & pratique sur les


systèmes tempérés de musique’, Mémoires de l’Academie
royale des sciences (Paris, 1758)

A.R. McClure: ‘Studies in Keyboard Temperaments’, GSJ, i


(1948), 28–40

J.M. Barbour: Tuning and Temperament: a Historical


Survey (East Lansing, MI, 1951, 2/1953)

K. Levy: ‘Costeley’s Chromatic Chanson’, AnnM, iii (1955),


213–63
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<p>Printed from Grove Music Online. Grove is a registered trademark. Under the terms of the licence agreement,
an individual user may print out a single article for personal use&#160;(for details see Privacy Policy).</p><p>
Subscriber: Istanbul Teknik University; date: 24 June 2019</p>
M. Lindley: ‘Early 16th-century Keyboard Temperaments’,
MD, xxviii (1974), 129–51

M. Lindley: ‘Fifteenth-century Evidence for Meantone


Temperament’, PRMA, cii (1975–6), 37–51

C.A. Padgham, P.D. Collins and G.K. Parker: ‘A Trial of


Unequal Temperament on the Organ’, JBIOS, iii (1979),
73–91

M. Lindley: ‘Chromatic Systems (or Non-Systems) from


Vicento to Monteverdi’, EMH, ii (1982), 377–404
For further bibliography see Temperaments.

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