equal temperament

American  

noun

Music.

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

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Example Sentences

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

Soon he challenged the system of equal temperament that has dominated Western music for centuries.

From New York Times • Apr. 28, 2016

The beats are so regular, in fact, that they can be timed; for equal temperament they are on the order of a beat per second in the mid range of a piano.

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