Musical Instrument Classification - Mahillon and Hornbostel-Sachs Systems

Mahillon and Hornbostel-Sachs Systems

An ancient system of Indian origin, dating from the 4th or 3rd century BC, in the Natya Shastra, a theoretical treatise on music and dramaturgy, by Bharata Muni, divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating strings (tata vadya, "stretched instruments"); instruments where the sound is produced by vibrating columns of air (susira vadya, "hollow instruments"); percussion instruments made of wood or metal (ghana vadya, "solid instruments"); and percussion instruments with skin heads, or drums (avanaddha vadya,"covereed instruments"). Victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. He was the curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in Brussels, and for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups: strings, winds, drums, and other percussion. This scheme was later taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication 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:

1. idiophones, such as the xylophone, which produce sound by vibrating themselves;
2. membranophones, such as drums or kazoos, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane;
3. chordophones, such as the piano or cello, which produce sound by vibrating strings;
4. aerophones, such as the pipe organ or oboe, which produce sound by vibrating columns of air.

Later Sachs added a fifth category, electrophones, such as theremins, which produce sound by electronic means. Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, but remains widely used by ethnomusicologists and organologists.