Editing Musical instrument classification (section)

====Chinese====
{{see also|List of Chinese musical instruments|Chinese orchestra}}
The oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is [[China|Chinese]] and may date as far back as the second millennium BC.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Exploring the World of Music: An Introduction to Music from a World Music Perspective|last=Hast|first=Dorothea E.|publisher=Kendall Hunt|year=1999|isbn=0787271543|location=Debuque, IA|pages=144}}</ref> It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. Instruments made of [[Rock (geology)|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 [[Zhou dynasty|Chou period]] (9th–5th centuries BC) and corresponding to the four seasons and four winds.<ref name="Kartomi1990"/><ref name="Rowell1992">{{cite book|work=Music and Musical Thought in Early India|page=54|first=Lewis Eugene|last=Rowell|date=1992|publisher=University of Chicago Press|title=Three Ancient Conceptions of Musical Sound}}</ref>

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: [[metallophone|metal]] (金, jīn), [[lithophone|stone]] (石, shí), [[string instrument|silk]] (絲, sī), [[bamboo musical instruments|bamboo]] (竹, zhú), [[gourd#Uses|gourd]] (匏, páo), [[xun (instrument)|clay]] (土, tǔ), [[membranophone|leather]] (革, gé), and [[woodblock (instrument)|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.<ref name="Kartomi1990"/>

However, the [[Chou-Li]] (Rites of Chou), an anonymous treatise compiled from earlier sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order: metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd, and bamboo. The same order was presented in the [[Tso Chuan]] (Commentary of Tso), attributed to [[Tso Chiu-Ming]], probably compiled in the 4th century BC.<ref name="Kartomi1990"/>

Much later, [[Ming dynasty]] (14th–17th century) scholar [[Chu Tsai Yu]] recognized three groups: those instruments using muscle power or used for musical accompaniment, those that are blown, and those that are [[rhythm]]ic, a scheme which was probably the first scholarly attempt, while the earlier ones were traditional, folk [[taxonomy (general)|taxonomies]].<ref>Margaret  Kartomi, 2011, Upward and Downward Classifications of Musical Instruments-musicology.ff,cuni.cz)</ref>

More usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced (regardless of [[Audio editing software|post-processing]], i.e., an electric guitar is still a string-instrument regardless of what analog or digital/computational post-processing [[effects pedals]] may be used with it).