User Manual

PSR-A5000 Owner’s Manual 79
5
Selecting and/or Creating a Temperament (Scale Tune)
You can select various scales for playing in custom tunings for specific historical periods or music genres.
1 Select the desired Scale type (temperament).
2 Change the following settings as necessary.
Selecting or Creating a Temperament from the Preset Types (Main Scale)
2
1
Parts to which the Main Scale
setting are applied
Type • Equal: The pitch range of each octave is divided equally into twelve parts, with each half-step
evenly spaced in pitch. This is the most commonly used tuning in music today.
• Pure Major, Pure Minor: These tunings preserve the pure mathematical intervals of each scale,
especially for triad chords (root, third, fifth). You can hear this best in actual vocal harmonies—
such as choirs and a cappella singing.
• Pythagorean: This scale was devised by the famous Greek philosopher and is created from a
series of perfect fifths, which are collapsed into a single octave. The 3rd in this tuning is slightly
unstable, but the 4th and 5th are beautiful and suitable for some leads.
• Mean-Tone: This scale was created as an improvement on the Pythagorean scale, by making the
major third interval more “in tune.” It was especially popular from the 16th century to the 18th
century. Handel, among others, used this scale.
• Werckmeister, Kirnberger: This composite scale combines the Werckmeister and Kirnberger
systems, which were themselves improvements on the mean-tone and Pythagorean scales. The
main feature of this scale is that each key has its own unique character. The scale was used
extensively during the time of Bach and Beethoven, and even now it is often used when per-
forming period music on the harpsichord.
• Bayati, Rast, Rast Jaharka, Rast Nawa, Rast Hosseini: Use these tunings when playing Arabic
music.
Base Note Determines the base note for each scale. When the base note is changed, the pitch of the keyboard is
transposed, yet maintains the original pitch relationship between the notes.
Tune Touch the desired key of the keyboard illustration on the display, and then tune it in cents.
The boxes at the upper and lower side of each key determines whether the tune setting is applied to
the note. You can turn this on/off by touching it when the value is something other than 0. If you edit
this parameter, “(Edited)” is shown at the right of “Type” in step 1.
Bypass Turning this on with the [BYPASS] button or [Bypass] on the Scale Tune display disables all the
Scale Tune settings temporarily. This lets you hear the sound for comparison purposes.
Parts
(Left, Right 1, etc.)
Checkmark the part to which the Main Scale setting is applied.
In musical terms a “cent” is 1/100th of a semitone. (100 cents equal one semitone.)
NOTE
To store the Scale Tune (Main Scale) settings
If you want to store the Scale Tune (Main Scale) settings, use the Registration Memory. Press the [MEMORY] button
in the REGISTRATION MEMORY section, then checkmark “Scale Tune” and press one of the REGISTRATION
MEMORY [1]–[8] buttons to register the Scale Tune settings.