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534 Musical Instruments subcategories

 

Description
 

Western instruments are often classified in three categories:

 
  • stringed
  • wind
  • percussion.
 

For research purposes, however, the widely-used Sachs-Hornbostel system is more helpful. It classifies instruments in four basic categories according to how the sound is made, that is, what vibrates to make the sound. Here is a table that shows the four categories and their subclassification criteria:

 

Basic category

Criteria for subclasses

Idiophones

Playing method

Membranophones

Playing method and shape

Cordophones

Relationship of strings to the body or resonator

Aerophones

Method used to vibrate the air
 

Contemporary researchers add an Electrophones category to cover electric keyboards and the like.

 

Sources

 

Instrument descriptions and subcategories were developed from the following:

 
Apel, Willi. 1972. Harvard dictionary of music. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Diagram Group. 1976. Musical instruments of the world. New York: Facts on File Publications.
Dournon, Genevieve. 1992. "Organology." In Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, edited by Helen Myers. New York: W.W. Norton.
Hornbostel, Erich M., and Curt Sachs. 1961. Classification of musical instruments. Translated from the original German by Anthony Baines and Klaus P. Wachsmann. Galpin Society Journal 14:3--29.
Subcategories
  Here are the 534 Musical Instruments subcategories:
 

Context for this page:

Go to SIL home page This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 3.5, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 21 March 1999

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