Musical instrument classification
2nd-century Greek grammarian, sophist, and rhetorician Julius Pollux, in the chapter called De Musica of his ten-volume Onomastikon, presented the two-class system, percussion (including strings) and winds, which persisted in medieval and postmedieval Europe.
The original Sachs–Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups: Later Sachs added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means.
In 1932, comparative musicologist (ethnomusicologist) André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was "exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments".
The MSA (Multi-Dimensional Scalogram Analysis) of René Lysloff and Jim Matson,[3] using 37 variables, including characteristics of the sounding body, resonator, substructure, sympathetic vibrator, performance context, social context, and instrument tuning and construction, corroborated Schaeffner, producing two categories, aerophones and the chordophone-membranophone-idiophone combination.
[4] In 1960, German musicologist Kurt Reinhard presented a stylistic taxonomy, as opposed to a morphological one, with two divisions determined by either single or multiple voices playing.
[5] This system is composed of gaiaphones (chordophones, membranophones, and idiophones), hydraulophones, aerophones, plasmaphones, and quintephones (electrically and optically produced music), the names referring to the five essences, earth, water, wind, fire and the quintessence, thus adding three new categories to the Schaeffner taxonomy.
The symphony orchestra typically has the strings in the front, the woodwinds in the middle, and the basses, brass, and percussion in the back.
Jean-Benjamin de la Borde (1780) classified instruments according to ethnicity, his categories being Black, Abyssinian, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek.
Ibn Sina, Persian scholar of the 11th century, presented a scheme in his Kitab al-Najat (Book of the Delivery), made the same distinction.
In his Kitab al-Shifa (Book of Soul Healing), he proposed another taxonomy, of five classes: fretted instruments; unfretted (open) stringed, lyres and harps; bowed stringed; wind (reeds and some other woodwinds, such as the flute and bagpipe), other wind instruments such as the organ; and the stick-struck santur (a board zither).
[1][12] The eight-fold system of eight sounds or timbres (八音, bā yīn), from the same source, occurred gradually, and in the legendary Emperor Shun's time (3rd millennium BC) it is believed to have been presented in the following order: metal (金, jīn), stone (石, shí), silk (絲, sī), bamboo (竹, zhú), gourd (匏, páo), clay (土, tǔ), leather (革, gé), and wood (木, mù) classes, and it correlated to the eight seasons and eight winds of Chinese culture, autumn and west, autumn-winter and NW, summer and south, spring and east, winter-spring and NE, summer-autumn and SW, winter and north, and spring-summer and SE, respectively.
[1] However, the Chou-Li (Rites of Chou), an anonymous treatise compiled from earlier sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order: metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd, and bamboo.
[1] Kunst described five categories: nuclear theme (cantus firmus in Latin and balungan ("skeletal framework") in Indonesian); colotomic (a word invented by Kunst, meaning "interpunctuating"), the gongs; countermelodic; paraphrasing (panerusan), subdivided as close to the nuclear theme and ornamental filling; agogic (tempo-regulating), drums.
Kodrat Poerbapangrawit, similar to Kunst, derives six categories: balungan, the saron, demung, and slenthem; rerenggan (ornamental), the gendèr, gambang, and bonang); wiletan (variable formulaic melodic), rebab and male chorus (gerong); singgetan (interpunctuating); kembang (floral), flute and female voice; jejeging wirama (tempo regulating), drums.
Minangkabau musicians (of West Sumatra) use the following taxonomy for bunyi-bunyian ("objects that sound"): dipukua ("beaten"), dipupuik ("blown), dipatiek ("plucked"), ditariek ("pulled"), digesek ("bowed"), dipusiang ("swung").
Classifying musical instruments on the basis sociohistorical factors as well as mode of sound production is common in Indonesia.
The division pervades T'boli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, and artistic styles.
[1] In West Africa, tribes such as the Dan, Gio, Kpelle, Hausa, Akan, and Dogon, use a human-centered system.
[1] The Kpelle of West Africa distinguish the struck (yàle), including both beaten and plucked, and the blown (fêe).
