Technical Library TEMPERAMENTS X: Corrette Entire Contents Copyright ©2005 CBH

Corrette’s temperament from 1753 reduces the huge wolf of Quarter-comma meantone by half, while managing to retain five pure major thirds in useful keys.

When you set the Corrette temperament by changing only three accidental notes of your usual Quarter-comma meantone, you can truly appreciate why it is one of a group of temperaments loosely termed “modified meantones”. Proceed as follows from the usual Quarter-comma recipe:

1. Tune your b^b a perfect fifth below f', then lower the b^b until it has a very slight beat, much less than once per second. The interval might be wide by perhaps a twelfth of a comma—the same discrepancy as an equal-tempered fifth is narrow. There’s no need to fuss or panic about this: Just so long as your interval is a tad wide, you are probably just fine.

2. Find your e^b a perfect fifth below b^b, then again expand the interval by lowering the e^b until you hear an ever so slight beat.

3. All that remains is to determine your g^# by tuning a perfect fifth from c^# and again stretching the interval until it has a slight beat. It should have a similar flavor to the same sized fifth you have just tuned only a tone higher, e^b–b^b. The wolf between g^# and e^b is the residual closing the circle mathematically—this interval is never intentionally tuned.

There are many other meantone possibilities, and who’s to say that we must always be tinkering with quarter-comma fifths? They could be almost any size. In fact, let’s have a brief look at one possibility now, before we get back to some well temperaments.

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