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Home » piano chord number system » What does 48 note polyphony mean?

What does 48 note polyphony mean?

Q. OK, well I'm getting this keyboard for Christmas (I'm learning to play piano) and listed on the features it says, "48 note polyphony." What does this mean. Please answer.

A. 'Poly' means 'many'. 'Phony' means 'sound'.
48 note polyphony means that you can make many sounds at the same time (48 of them).
Old systems had a low number of notes that could be played at the same time so you could only do simple chords and not have a programed backtrack playing along with you.
48 might sound like a lot but if you have a drum track, a bass track, a guitar track and you are playing lead keyboard you can use up a great big chunk of that 48 pretty fast.

Original Question

why don't we hear beats when different keys on the piano are played at the same time?
Q.

A. You *can* hear destructive interference, if you play a minor 2nd, (for example A and A-flat.) You may also be able to hear faint beats in a major third (C, E)

Most common intervals and chords you will hear played on a piano are "consonant," meaning the frequencies tend to "line up" and not strongly interfere with each other. Two pitches are "consonant" if their frequencies form an exact ratio of whole numbers. For example, in an octave, the simplest interval, the ratio of the frequencies is 2:1

Modern pianos are tuned using "twelve tone even temperament", or "12-TET." Specifically, the ratio between the frequencies of any two keys on the piano is

f2 / f1 = 2^(n /12)

where n is how far apart the two keys are(considering both black and white keys.)

For a major third to be *exactly* consonant, it needs to have a frequency ratio of exactly 5/4 = 1.25. But using even temperament, the ratio between the notes C and E (for example) is 2^(4/12) = 1.2599, so on a piano, major thirds tend to be slightly sharp. If you listen carefully, you can hear the dissonance in thirds, even on a well tuned piano. The interference in minor seconds is simply because the notes are so close together.

Even temperament gives relatively good consonance for seconds, fourths, fifths, and sevenths, but causes thirds and sixths to be slightly out-of-tune.......a bit of a musical compromise. However, most piano music has a relatively large number of notes played at the same time, and is played quickly enough, that any dissonance is hard to distinguish from background noise. In practice, even temperament tends to sound more "harmonious" than other systems where the intervals would be exact.

Hope that's not too confusing,
~W.O.M.B.A.T.

Original Question

Hello Out There Can someone Answer Today Please.?
Q. can someone tell me when playing a chord i play piano but have to learn the chord system for my church ok when playing a 9th 11th 13th chords, they are really big what notes would you omit like one chord was a Gb 13 #11th chord what note or notes would i omit. in every key how do you know what notes to omit when playing 9th 11th 13th chords.and one more G13 sus 4 what do i omit. thanks yahoo like i said i read and i guess when i was young piano teachers really did not stress much on chords i hate that. my church uses chord piano and the number system.thanks god bless.

A. I think you should focus on English and punctuation more rather than studying music.

Original Question




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Title : What does 48 note polyphony mean?
Description : Q. OK, well I'm getting this keyboard for Christmas (I'm learning to play piano) and listed on the features it says, "48 note ...

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