Classification of Musical Instruments
By Jan Kijlstra
[ This article is extracted from a letter Jan sent me about this
[ interesting book :
[
[ The Marvelous World of Music Machines
[ Edited 1976 by Office du Livre, Freibourg
[ (translation from "Musikautomaten und Mechanische
[ Musicinstrumente" by James Underwood).
Robbie: The table of contents of this book might as well serve as a good guide on indexing mechanical music instruments. At least it looks like it is following the common rules for classification of musical instruments.
[ Text from the book: ]
We know of over 40,000 musical instruments. No wonder people have tried to achieve some order amongst them. At first this was done by putting together similar instruments, thus creating groups. In doing so the group "wind instruments" not only enclosed the flute and the clarinet, but also the trumpet, the horn and the oboe. On the other hand there always have been some classifications in which instruments were arranged under "snare instruments", "percussion instruments", and so on.
So certain systematics always have been there, but the question of classification of musical instruments came about only when the interest in the science of music in Western-Europe rose above the level of that needed for the normally-used orchestral instruments. _Then_ the question of classification of musical instruments turned out to be rather complex -- so complex that only during the last 40 or 50 years, thanks to far more complex systematics, a more-or-less clear order could be achieved.
Here are some important developments in the classification of musical instruments.
Victor Mahillon, a Belgian, wrote a "Catalogue descriptif et analitique du Musee du Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles". This was a catalogue of the instruments of the museum of the royal school of music at Brussels, the capital of Belgium. (By the way, this still is one of the most important European, or even world-wide, collections of musical instruments).
Since he wrote this catalogue during the years 1880 and 1922 (2300 pages, 3300 instruments) he was using the scientific rules of those days, which is also responsible for the fact that he used names which would be under- stood by every scientist, regardless of his native tongue. So, instead of "wind instrument," Mahillon used the scientific words from the Greek and Latin languages. That's why a wind-instrument would be described as an aerophone, a combination of the Greek words "phonos" = sounding, and "aero" = wind, thus making: an instrument sounding by using wind. The same goes for chordophone, where "choros" = string, and membrano- phones for drums. The autophones were a group where instruments like bells, xylophones, and also music boxes were placed.
The Godfather of German music science, Curt Sachs, recognised the importance of the work of Mahillon. However, in his masterpiece, the "Reallexicon der Musikinstrumente" (1913) he argued against the name "autophone". He wanted to change this name into "idiophone", thus changing "auto" = by itself, into "idio" = "like; owner of a certain property." This change was widely accepted, and thus we still divide musical instruments by their scientific names: aerophones (wind instruments), idiophones (instruments that will sound by themself, without extra technical help like tension or such), membranophones (like drums) and chordophones (instruments with strings).
Another grand man was Backhaus, also a German. He stated that, in fact, the aerophones and the idiophones did belong to the same group. This was an interesting point of view. However, it didn't cause a change in the Mahillon scheme of classification.
Some other important scientists were Hans Heinz Draeger (1909) and Andrea Schaeffner (1932).
Regards, Jan
- - -
Classification of Musical Instruments
IDIOPHONES
Percussion idiophones
Plucked idiophones
Musical boxes with steel combs and cylinder or disc ("sur plateau")
Devices, moving figures, and pictures with built-in musical movement:
comb and cylinder or disc ("sur plateau").
Cylinder musical boxes with steel combs and small additional
percussion idiophones
Disc musical boxes with steel combs and in some cases bells
Wind idiophones
Harmoniums, accordions, barrel-organs, and other free-reed instruments
Free-reed barrel organs (musical boxes with steel combs and free reeds,
etc.)
CHORDOPHONES
Percussion chordophones
The reproducing-piano
Plucked cordophones
String-and-percussion chordophones
AEROPHONES
Organs and similar instruments
Organs for manual and automatic play
Organs for purely automatic play
Organs with hand-crank drive
Barrel-organs with moving figures
Flute-clocks
Moving figures with flute and/or reed pipes
Instruments, devices, or figures with one or more pipes
in which the speaking-length can be shortened by means of a
plunger (swance whistle)
ORCHESTRIONS
Orchestrions using mainly idiophones or chordophones
Orchestrions using mainly aerophones
VARIOUS OTHER INSTRUMENTS AND DEVICES
Special and composite instruments
Playing-devices
Punching-machines |
(Message sent Fri 17 Jan 1997, 23:48:38 GMT, from time zone GMT.) |
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