Editing Musical instrument classification (section)

===West and South Asian===

====Indian====
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An ancient system of [[India]]n 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 (''[[vadya]]'') 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 [[drum]]s (''avanaddha vadya'', "covered instruments").

====Persian====
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[[Al-Farabi]], Persian scholar of the 10th century, distinguished tonal duration. In one of his four schemes, in his two-volume ''[[Kitab al-Musiki al-Kabir]]'' (''Great Book of Music'') he identified five classes, in order of ranking, as follows: the human voice, the bowed strings (the ''rebab'') and winds, plucked strings, percussion, and dance, the first three pointed out as having continuous tone.

[[Ibn Sina]], Persian scholar of the 11th century, presented a scheme in his ''Kitab al-Najat'' (Book of the Delivery), made the same distinction. He used two classes. In his ''[[Kitab al-Shifa]]'' (Book of Soul Healing), he proposed another taxonomy, of five classes: [[fret]]ted 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). The distinction between fretted and open was in classic Persian fashion.

====Turkish====
Ottoman encyclopedist [[Hadji Khalifa]] (17th century) recognized three classes of musical instruments in his ''[[Kâtip Çelebi#Names of books|Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun]]'' (''Clarification and Conjecture About the Names of Books and Sciences''), a treatise on the origin and construction of instruments. This was exceptional for a [[Near East]]ern writer, most of whom, like Near Eastern culture traditionally and early [[Hellenistic Greece|Hellenistic Greeks]], ignored the [[percussion instrument]]s because it regarded them as primitive.<ref name="Kartomi1990"/>