Editing Musical instrument classification (section)

===European and Western===
{{see also|Orchestra#Instrumentation}}
2nd-century Greek grammarian, sophist, and rhetorician [[Julius Pollux]], in the chapter called De Musica of his ten-volume ''Onomastikon'', presented the two-class system, percussion (including strings) and winds, which persisted in medieval and postmedieval Europe. It was used by [[St. Augustine]] (4th and 5th centuries), in his De Ordine, applying the terms rhythmic (percussion and strings), organic (winds), and adding harmonic (the human voice); [[Isidore of Seville]] (6th to 7th centuries); [[Hugh of Saint Victor]] (12th century), also adding the voice; Magister Lambertus (13th century), adding the human voice as well; and [[Michael Praetorius]] (17th century).<ref name="Kartomi1990"/>{{rp|119–21,147}}

The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion. It is of [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] origin (in the Hellenistic period, prominent proponents being [[Nicomachus]] and [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]]). The scheme was later expanded by [[Martin Agricola]], who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as [[guitar]]s, from bowed string instruments, such as [[violin]]s. [[European classical music|Classical musicians]] today do not always maintain this division (although plucked strings are grouped separately from bowed strings in [[sheet music]]), but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed ([[woodwind instrument|woodwinds]]) and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips ([[brass instrument]]s).<!-- Harmonicas? Accordions? Flutes/Recorders? Synthesizers/Electronica? -->

Many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The [[serpent (musical instrument)|serpent]], for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, as a column of air is set in motion by the lips. However, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves.l.

[[Keyboard instrument]]s do not fit easily into this scheme. For example, the [[piano]] has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. For this reason, keyboard instruments are often regarded as inhabiting a category of their own, including all instruments played by a keyboard, whether they have struck strings (like the piano), plucked strings (like the [[harpsichord]]) or no strings at all (like the [[celesta]]).

It might be said that with these extra categories, the classical system of instrument classification focuses less on the fundamental way in which instruments produce sound, and more on the technique required to play them.

Various names have been assigned to these three traditional Western groupings:<ref name="Kartomi1990"/>{{rp|136–138, 157, notes for Chapter 10}}
* [[Boethius]] (5th and 6th centuries) labelled them ''intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis ("breath in the tube"), and percussione'';
* [[Cassiodorus]], a younger contemporary of Boethius, used the names ''tensibilia, percussionalia'', and ''inflatilia'';
* [[Roger Bacon]] (13th century) dubbed them ''tensilia, inflativa'', and ''percussionalia'';
* [[Ugolino da Orvieto]] (14th and 15th centuries) called them ''intensione ut nervis, spiritu ut tibiis'', and ''percussione'';
* [[Sebastien de Brossard]] (1703) referred to them as ''enchorda'' or ''entata'' (but only for instruments with several strings), ''pneumatica'' or ''empneousta'', and ''krusta'' (from the Greek for hit or strike) or ''pulsatilia'' (for percussives);
* [[Filippo Bonanni]] (1722) used vernacular names: ''sonori per il fiato'', ''sonori per la tensione'', and ''sonori per la percussione'';
* Joseph Majer (1732) called them ''pneumatica'', ''pulsatilia'' (percussives including plucked instruments), and ''fidicina'' (from fidula, fiddle) (for bowed instruments);
* Johann Eisel (1738) dubbed them ''pneumatica, pulsatilia'', and ''fidicina'';
* [[Johannes de Muris]] (1784) used the terms ''chordalia'', ''foraminalia'' (from ''foramina'', "bore" in reference to the bored tubes), and ''vasalia'' (for "vessels");
* [[Regino of Prum]] (1784) called them ''tensibile'', ''inflatile'', and ''percussionabile''.

====Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs systems====
{{see also|Hornbostel-Sachs}}
{{Refimprove section|date=September 2022}}
[[Victor-Charles Mahillon]], curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in [[Brussels]], for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups and assigned Greek-derived labels to the four classifications: chordophones (stringed instruments), membranophones (skin-head percussion instruments), aerophones (wind instruments), and autophones (non-skin percussion instruments). This scheme was later taken up by [[Erich von Hornbostel]] and [[Curt Sachs]] who published an extensive new scheme for classification 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:
# [[idiophone]]s, such as the [[xylophone]], which produce sound by vibrating themselves;
# [[membranophone]]s, such as [[drum]]s or [[kazoo]]s, which produce sound by a vibrating membrane;
# [[chordophone]]s, such as the piano or [[cello]], which produce sound by vibrating strings;
# [[aerophone]]s, such as the [[pipe organ]] or [[oboe]], which produce sound by vibrating columns of air.

Later Sachs added a fifth category, [[electrophone]]s, such as [[theremin]]s, which produce sound by electronic means.<ref>''The History of Musical Instruments'', C. Sachs, Norton, New York, 1940</ref> Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category. Within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticized and revised over the years, but remains widely used by [[ethnomusicology|ethnomusicologists]] and [[organology|organologists]]. One notable example of this criticism is that care should be taken with electrophones, as some electronic instruments like the [[electric guitar]] (chordophone) and some [[electronic keyboard]]s (sometimes idiophones or chordophones) can produce music without electricity or the use of an amplifier.

In the [[Hornbostel–Sachs]] classification of musical instruments, lamellophones are considered [[plucked idiophone]]s, a category that includes various forms of [[jaw harp]] and the European mechanical [[music box]], as well as the huge variety of African and Afro-Latin [[thumb piano]]s such as the [[mbira]] and [[marimbula]].

====André Schaeffner====
<!--[[André Schaeffner]] and [[Andre Schaeffner]] redirect directly here.-->
In 1932, comparative musicologist (ethnomusicologist) [[:fr:André_Schaeffner|André Schaeffner]] developed a new classification scheme that was "exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments".<ref name="Kartomi1990">{{cite book|last=Kartomi|first=Margaret J.|title=On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|series=Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology|date=1990-11-01}}</ref>{{rp|176}}

Schaeffner's system has only two top-level categories which he denoted by Roman numerals:
* I: instruments that make sound from vibrating solids:
** I.A: no tension (free solid, for example, [[xylophone]]s, [[cymbals]], or [[claves]]);
** I.B: linguaphones ([[lamellophone]]s) (solid fixed at only one end, such as a kalimba or thumb piano);
** I.C: chordophones (solid fixed at both ends, i.e. strings such as [[piano]] or [[harp]]); plus drums
* II: instruments that make sound from vibrating air (such as [[clarinets]], [[trumpets]], or [[Bullroarer (music)|bull-roarers]].)

The system agrees with Mahillon and Hornbostel–Sachs for [[chordophone]]s, but groups percussion instruments differently.

The MSA (Multi-Dimensional Scalogram Analysis) of René Lysloff and Jim Matson,<ref>A New Approach to the Classification of Sound-Producing Instruments, Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer, 1985, also at mywebspace.wisc.edu</ref> using 37 variables, including characteristics of the sounding body, resonator, substructure, sympathetic vibrator, performance context, social context, and instrument tuning and construction, corroborated Schaeffner, producing two categories, aerophones and the chordophone-membranophone-idiophone combination.

André Schaeffner has been president of the French association of musicologists Société française de musicologie (1958–1967).<ref>{{Cite web |title=La SFM en quelques dates: présidée par les musicologue suivants |url=https://sfmusicologie.fr/historique |access-date=2021-07-15 |website=sfmusicologie.fr/}}</ref>

====Kurt Reinhard====
In 1960, German musicologist [[Kurt Reinhard (musicologist)|Kurt Reinhard]] presented a stylistic taxonomy, as opposed to a morphological one, with two divisions determined by either single or multiple voices playing.<ref name="Kartomi1990"/> Each of these two divisions was subdivided according to pitch changeability (not changeable, freely changeable, and changeable by fixed intervals), and also by tonal continuity (discontinuous (as the marimba and drums) and continuous (the friction instruments (including bowed) and the winds), making 12 categories. He also proposed classification according to whether they had dynamic tonal variability, a characteristic that separates whole eras (e.g., the baroque from the classical) as in the transition from the terraced dynamics of the harpsichord to the crescendo of the piano, grading by degree of absolute loudness, timbral spectra, tunability, and degree of resonance.

====Steve Mann====
In 2007, [[Steve Mann (inventor)|Steve Mann]] presented a five-class, physics-based organology elaborating on the classification proposed by Schaeffner.<ref name="Mann2007">{{cite conference|conference=New Interfaces for Musical Expression|title=Natural Interfaces for Musical Expression, Proceedings of the Conference on Interfaces for Musical Expression|pages=118–23|last=Mann|first=Steve|date=2007}}</ref> This system is composed of gaiaphones (chordophones, membranophones, and idiophones), [[hydraulophone]]s, [[aerophone]]s, plasmaphones, and quintephones (electrically and optically produced music), the names referring to the five essences, earth, water, wind, fire and the [[Quintessence (physics)|quintessence]], thus adding three new categories to the Schaeffner taxonomy.

<!--[[Elementary organology]], [[Aerophone (elementary organology)]], [[Gaiaphone]], [[Hydraulophone (elementary organology)]], [[Plasmaphone]], and [[Quintephone]] redirect directly here.-->
Elementary organology, also known as physical organology, is a classification scheme based on the elements (i.e. states of matter) in which sound production takes place.<ref>Computer Music Journal
Fall 2008, Vol. 32, No. 3, Pages 25–41
Posted Online August 15, 2008. {{doi|10.1162/comj.2008.32.3.25}}</ref><ref>The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, Print {{ISBN|9780199743391}}, 2016, Edited by Laurence Libin.</ref> "Elementary" refers both to "element" (state of matter) and to something that is fundamental or innate (physical).<ref name="physiphones"/><ref>Computer Music Journal
Fall 2008, Vol. 32, No. 3, Pages 25–41</ref> The elementary organology map can be traced to Kartomi, Schaeffner, Yamaguchi, and others,<ref name="physiphones">Physiphones, NIME 2007, New York, pp118-123</ref> as well as to the Greek and Roman concepts of elementary classification of all objects, not just musical instruments.<ref name="physiphones"/>

Elementary organology categorizes musical instruments by their [[classical element]]:
{|class="wikitable" style="margin:auto;"
|-
!style="width:1.5em;"|&nbsp;|| Element || State   || Category           ||
|-
| 1 || Earth   || solids  || gaiaphones         || the first category proposed by Andre Schaeffner<ref name="classifications176">Kartomi, page 176, "On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments", by Margaret J. Kartomi, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology (CSE), 1990</ref>
|-
| 2 || Water   || liquids || hydraulophones ||
|-
| 3 || Air     || gases   || aerophones     || the second category proposed by Andre Schaeffner<ref name="classifications176"/>
|-
| 4 || Fire    || plasmas || plasmaphones   ||
|-
| 5 ||Quintessence/Idea || informatics || quintephones ||
|}

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[[File:Musical instrument classification by physics-based organology.png|thumb|center|654px|Musical instrument classification in physics-based organology.]]