Musical instrument classification
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In organology, the study of musical instruments, many methods of classifying instruments exist. Most methods are specific to a particular cultural group and were developed to serve that culture's musical needs. Culture-based classification methods sometimes break down when applied outside that culture. For example, a classification based on instrument use may fail when applied to another culture that uses the same instrument differently.
In the study of Western music, the most common classification method divides instruments into the following groups:
- String instruments (often subdivided between plucked and bowed instruments);
- Wind instruments (often subdivided between woodwinds and brass);
- Percussion instruments; and
- Electronic instruments
Classification criteria
The criteria for classifying musical instruments vary depending on the point of view, time, and place. The many various approaches examine aspects such as the physical properties of the instrument (shape, construction, material composition, physical state, etc.), the manner in which the instrument is played (plucked, bowed, etc.), the means by which the instrument produces sound, the quality or timbre of the sound produced by the instrument, the tonal and dynamic range of the instrument, the musical function of the instrument (rhythmic, melodic, etc.), and the instrument's place in an orchestra or other ensemble.
Classification systems by their geographical and historical origins
European and Western
2nd-century Greek grammarian, sophist, and rhetorician
The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion. It is of
Many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The
Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme. For example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. For this reason, keyboard instruments are often regarded as inhabiting a category of their own, including all instruments played by a keyboard, whether they have struck strings (like the piano), plucked strings (like the harpsichord) or no strings at all (like the celesta).
It might be said that with these extra categories, the classical system of instrument classification focuses less on the fundamental way in which instruments produce sound, and more on the technique required to play them.
Various names have been assigned to these three traditional Western groupings:[1]: 136–138, 157, notes for Chapter 10
- Boethius (5th and 6th centuries) labelled them intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis ("breath in the tube"), and percussione;
- Cassiodorus, a younger contemporary of Boethius, used the names tensibilia, percussionalia, and inflatilia;
- Roger Bacon (13th century) dubbed them tensilia, inflativa, and percussionalia;
- Ugolino da Orvieto(14th and 15th centuries) called them intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis, and percussione;
- Sebastien de Brossard(1703) referred to them as enchorda or entata (but only for instruments with several strings), pneumatica or empneousta, and krusta (from the Greek for hit or strike) or pulsatilia (for percussives);
- Filippo Bonanni (1722) used vernacular names: sonori per il fiato, sonori per la tensione, and sonori per la percussione;
- Joseph Majer (1732) called them pneumatica, pulsatilia (percussives including plucked instruments), and fidicina (from fidula, fiddle) (for bowed instruments);
- Johann Eisel (1738) dubbed them pneumatica, pulsatilia, and fidicina;
- Johannes de Muris (1784) used the terms chordalia, foraminalia (from foramina, "bore" in reference to the bored tubes), and vasalia (for "vessels");
- Regino of Prum(1784) called them tensibile, inflatile, and percussionabile.
Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs systems
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Victor-Charles Mahillon, curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in Brussels, for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups and assigned Greek-derived labels to the four classifications: chordophones (stringed instruments), membranophones (skin-head percussion instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), and autophones (non-skin percussion instruments). This scheme was later taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classification in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is widely used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel–Sachs system (or the Sachs–Hornbostel system).
The original Sachs–Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups:
- idiophones, such as the xylophone, which produce sound by vibrating themselves;
- membranophones, such as drums or kazoos, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane;
- chordophones, such as the piano or cello, which produce sound by vibrating strings;
- aerophones, such as the pipe organ or oboe, which produce sound by vibrating columns of air.
Later Sachs added a fifth category,
In the
André Schaeffner
In 1932, comparative musicologist (ethnomusicologist) André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was "exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments".[1]: 176
Schaeffner's system has only two top-level categories which he denoted by Roman numerals:
- I: instruments that make sound from vibrating solids:
- I.A: no tension (free solid, for example, cymbals, or claves);
- I.B: linguaphones (lamellophones) (solid fixed at only one end, such as a kalimba or thumb piano);
- I.C: chordophones (solid fixed at both ends, i.e. strings such as piano or harp); plus drums
- I.A: no tension (free solid, for example,
- II: instruments that make sound from vibrating air (such as bull-roarers.)
The system agrees with Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs for
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.
André Schaeffner has been president of the French association of musicologists Société française de musicologie (1958–1967).[4]
Kurt Reinhard
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.[1] Each of these two divisions was subdivided according to pitch changeability (not changeable, freely changeable, and changeable by fixed intervals), and also by tonal continuity (discontinuous (as the marimba and drums) and continuous (the friction instruments (including bowed) and the winds), making 12 categories. He also proposed classification according to whether they had dynamic tonal variability, a characteristic that separates whole eras (e.g., the baroque from the classical) as in the transition from the terraced dynamics of the harpsichord to the crescendo of the piano, grading by degree of absolute loudness, timbral spectra, tunability, and degree of resonance.
Steve Mann
In 2007, Steve Mann presented a five-class, physics-based organology elaborating on the classification proposed by Schaeffner.[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.
Elementary organology, also known as physical organology, is a classification scheme based on the elements (i.e. states of matter) in which sound production takes place.[6][7] "Elementary" refers both to "element" (state of matter) and to something that is fundamental or innate (physical).[8][9] The elementary organology map can be traced to Kartomi, Schaeffner, Yamaguchi, and others,[8] as well as to the Greek and Roman concepts of elementary classification of all objects, not just musical instruments.[8]
Elementary organology categorizes musical instruments by their classical element:
Element | State | Category | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Earth | solids | gaiaphones | the first category proposed by Andre Schaeffner[10] |
2 | Water | liquids | hydraulophones | |
3 | Air | gases | aerophones | the second category proposed by Andre Schaeffner[10] |
4 | Fire | plasmas | plasmaphones | |
5 | Quintessence/Idea | informatics | quintephones |
Other Western classifications
Classification by tonal range
Instruments can be classified by their musical range in comparison with other instruments in the same family. These terms are named after singing voice classifications:
- soprillo saxophone, piccolo
- Sopranino instruments: sopranino recorder, sopranino saxophone, treble flute
- Soprano instruments: concert flute, clarinet, soprano recorder, violin, trumpet, oboe, soprano saxophone
- Baritone instruments: cello, baritone horn, bass clarinet, bassoon, baritone saxophone
- bass trombone
- contrabass tuba, double bass, contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet, contrabass saxophone, subcontrabass saxophone, tubax, octobass
Some instruments fall into more than one category: for example, the cello may be considered either tenor or bass, depending on how its music fits into the ensemble, and the trombone may be alto, tenor, or bass and the French horn, bass, baritone, tenor, or alto, depending on which range it is played. In a typical concert band setting, the first alto saxophone covers soprano parts, while the second alto saxophone covers alto parts.
Many instruments include their range as part of their name: soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, baritone horn, alto flute, bass flute, bass guitar, etc. Additional adjectives describe instruments above the soprano range or below the bass, for example: sopranino recorder, sopranino saxophone, contrabass recorder, contrabass clarinet.
When used in the name of an instrument, these terms are relative, describing the instrument's range in comparison to other instruments of its family and not in comparison to the human voice range or instruments of other families. For example, a bass flute's range is from C3 to F♯6, while a bass clarinet plays about one octave lower.
Classification by function
Instruments can be categorized according to typical use, such as signal instruments, a category that may include instruments in different Hornbostel–Sachs categories such as trumpets, drums, and gongs. An example based on this criterion is Bonanni (e.g., festive, military, and religious).[1] He separately classified them according to geography and era.
Instruments can be classified according to the role they play in the ensemble. For example, the horn section in popular music typically includes both brass instruments and woodwind instruments. The symphony orchestra typically has the strings in the front, the woodwinds in the middle, and the basses, brass, and percussion in the back.
Classification by geographical or ethnic origin
West and South Asian
Indian
An ancient system of
Persian
Turkish
Ottoman encyclopedist
East and South-East Asian
Chinese
The oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and may date as far back as the second millennium BC.[11] It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. Instruments made of stone were in one group, those of wood in another, those of silk are in a third, and those of bamboo in a fourth, as recorded in the Yo Chi (record of ritual music and dance), compiled from sources of the Chou period (9th–5th centuries BC) and corresponding to the four seasons and four winds.[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
Much later,
More usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced (regardless of
Indonesian
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2022) |
Classifications done for the Indonesian ensemble, the gamelan, were done by Jaap Kunst (1949), Martopangrawit, Poerbapangrawit, and Sumarsam (all in 1984).[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.
R. Ng. Martopangrawit has two categories, irama (the rhythm instruments) and lagu (the melodic instruments), the former corresponds to Kunst's classes 2 and 5, and the latter to Kunst's 1, 3, and 4.
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.
Sumarsam's scheme comprises
- an inner melodic group (lagu)(with a wide range), divided as
- elaborating (rebab, gerong, gendèr (a metallophone), gambang (a xylophone), pesindhen (female voice), celempung (plucked strings), suling (flute));
- mediating ( between the 1st and 3rd subdivisions (bonang (gong-chimes), saron panerus(a loud metallophone); and
- abstracting (balungan, "melodic abstraction")( with a 1-octave range), loud and soft metallophones (saron barung, demung, and slenthem);
- an outer circle, the structural group (gongs), which underlines the structure of the work;
- and occupying the space outside the outer circle, the kendang, a tempo-regulating group (drums).
The gamelan is also divided into front, middle, and back, much like the symphony orchestra.
An orally transmitted Javanese taxonomy has 8 groupings:[1]
- ricikan dijagur ("instruments beaten with a padded hammer," e.g., suspended gongs);
- ricikan dithuthuk ("instruments knocked with a hard or semihard hammer," e.g., saron (similar to the glockenspiel) and gong-chimes);
- ricikan dikebuk ("hand-beaten instruments", e.g., kendhang(drum));
- ricikan dipethik ("plucked instruments");
- ricikan disendal ("pulled instruments," e.g., genggong (jaw harp with string mechanism));
- ricikan dikosok ("bowed instruments");
- ricikan disebul ("blown instruments");
- ricikan dikocok ("shaken instruments").
A Javanese classification transmitted in literary form is as follows:[1]
- ricikan prunggu/wesi ("instruments made of bronze or iron");
- ricikan kulit ("leather instruments", drums);
- ricikan kayu ("wooden instruments");
- ricikan kawat/tali ("string instruments");
- ricikan bambu pring ("bamboo instruments", e.g., flutes).
This is much like the pa yin. It is suspected of being old but its age is unknown.
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"). The last one is for the bull-roarer. They also distinguish instruments on the basis of origin because of sociohistorical contacts, and recognize three categories: Mindangkabau (Minangkabau asli), Arabic (asal Arab), and Western (asal Barat), each of these divided up according to the five categories. Classifying musical instruments on the basis sociohistorical factors as well as mode of sound production is common in Indonesia.[1]
The Batak of North Sumatra recognize the following classes: beaten (alat pukul or alat palu), blown (alat tiup), bowed (alat gesek), and plucked (alat petik) instruments, but their primary classification is of ensembles.[1]
Philippines
The
African
West African
In West Africa, tribes such as the
The Kpelle of West Africa distinguish the struck (yàle), including both beaten and plucked, and the blown (fêe).[1][14] The yàle group is subdivided into five categories: instruments possessing lamellas (the sanzas); those possessing strings; those possessing a membrane (various drums); hollow wooden, iron, or bottle containers; and various rattles and bells. The Hausa, also of West Africa, classify drummers into those who beat drums and those who beat (pluck) strings (the other four player classes are blowers, singers, acclaimers, and talkers),[15]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Kartomi, Margaret J. (1990-11-01). On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. University of Chicago Press.
- ^ The History of Musical Instruments, C. Sachs, Norton, New York, 1940
- ^ A New Approach to the Classification of Sound-Producing Instruments, Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer, 1985, also at mywebspace.wisc.edu
- ^ "La SFM en quelques dates: présidée par les musicologue suivants". sfmusicologie.fr/. Retrieved 2021-07-15.
- ^ Mann, Steve (2007). Natural Interfaces for Musical Expression, Proceedings of the Conference on Interfaces for Musical Expression. New Interfaces for Musical Expression. pp. 118–23.
- ^ Computer Music Journal Fall 2008, Vol. 32, No. 3, Pages 25–41 Posted Online August 15, 2008.
- ISBN 9780199743391, 2016, Edited by Laurence Libin.
- ^ a b c Physiphones, NIME 2007, New York, pp118-123
- ^ Computer Music Journal Fall 2008, Vol. 32, No. 3, Pages 25–41
- ^ a b Kartomi, page 176, "On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments", by Margaret J. Kartomi, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology (CSE), 1990
- ISBN 0787271543.
- ^ Rowell, Lewis Eugene (1992). Three Ancient Conceptions of Musical Sound. University of Chicago Press. p. 54.
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ignored (help) - ^ Margaret Kartomi, 2011, Upward and Downward Classifications of Musical Instruments-musicology.ff,cuni.cz)
- ^ Ruth Stone, "Let the Inside Be Sweet: the interpretation of music among the Kpelle of Liberia", 1982, Indiana U. Press
- ^ Ames and King. Glossary of Hausa Music and its Social Contexts, 1971, Northwestern U. Press.