Editing Musical instrument classification (section)

====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]].