Levels of tempering

This page or section deals with proposed concepts. The terminology and concepts used in it are developed by one person or a small group and may lack widespread adoption.

Levels of tempering is a system of categorizing how different musicians equate intervals, which appears to be based on unchangeable assumptions. This is intended to avoid repetitive arguments such as "is 400¢ a 5/4?" by identifying what allows answers to be so different.

The proposal by User:Ground for some abbreviations, avoiding those commonly seen in a xenharmonic context like MT for meantone and ET for equal temperament:

1. D: Direct. All ratios are exactly as described within practical levels of precision. This category contains both those who use JI tunings and those who may ignore JI and interpret every interval as only its exact definition.
2. MCT: Microtemp (based on the SI prefix μ often written as mc in pharmaceutical contexts). Levels of precision are similar to Direct, but allow for the introduction of tempering. People in this category may use large high-accuracy edos to approximate JI, and refer to degrees of the edo based on which JI ratios they map to.
3. ST: Mesotemp (also evokes "standard tempered"). This is the most common category in RTT and interpretations of the most common edos. Intervals may be equated even if they are audibly different as long as they share a concordance well or position in the lattice. This is the point where straddling becomes practical.
4. XT: Exotemp. Intervals don't need to sound similar to be equated.