Hornbostel–Sachs

People make many kinds of music. They use many tools to make sound.

Two men made a way to group these tools. They wanted to name every kind. This helps us study music from all lands.

Some tools make sound with their own body. These are called idiophones. You might strike them with a stick. You could also shake them or rub them.

Other tools use a tight skin to make sound. These are called membranophones. Most drums are in this group.

This system helps us see how music works. It is a great way to learn!

People make music in many ways. Two men, Erich Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, made a way to group all instruments. They first shared their ideas in 1914. This system is called Hornbostel–Sachs. It helps experts study music from all cultures. It works much like the system used in libraries.

One group is called idiophones. These instruments make sound using their own body. For example, you might strike a xylophone with a stick. You could also shake a rattle or rub a singing bowl. Some people pluck idiophones, like the mbira. Others use air to make sound with blown idiophones.

Another group is called membranophones. These tools use a tight skin, or membrane, to make sound. Most drums are in this group. This includes the snare drum and the timpani. Some drums are shaped like a bowl. Others look like a tube or a barrel. This system has over 300 ways to group instruments. It helps us see how every tool makes music.

Musical instruments come in many different shapes and sounds. To understand them, experts use a special system called Hornbostel–Sachs. This system helps people group every instrument from every culture. It is very important to music experts called organologists. These people study how instruments are made and played. The system works a lot like the Dewey Decimal Classification used in libraries. It uses numbers to organize things into many groups.

How an instrument works determines its group. One major group is called idiophones. These instruments make sound using their own solid bodies. You might strike a xylophone or a marimba to hear them. Some people pluck them, like the mbira or a jaw harp. Other people rub them, like a singing bowl. You can even use air to play blown idiophones. This group includes many percussion instruments that are not drums.

Another group is called membranophones. These instruments make sound using a tight, stretched skin called a membrane. Most drums belong to this group. This includes the snare drum and the timpani, which are also called kettle drums. Some drums are shaped like a bowl. Others might look like a tube or a barrel. Some drums have one membrane, while others have two. The shape of the drum body can be conical or even hourglass-shaped.

This system has a long and interesting history. It was first published in 1914 in a journal called Zeitschrift. Two men, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, created it. They based their work on an older system from the late 19th century. That system was made by Victor-Charles Mahillon in Brussels. He divided instruments into four groups like air, strings, membranes, or bodies. Hornbostel and Sachs expanded his ideas to include all instruments.

The system is very detailed and large. It has five main top-level classifications. There are also many levels below those. In total, there are over 300 basic categories. An English translation was published in 1961 in the Galpin Society Journal. This version is used very often by experts today. The system was even updated in 2011. This was done as part of the Musical Instrument Museums Online Project.

The Hornbostel–Sachs system is a method for classifying musical instruments. It is used by organologists, who are people that study musical instruments. This system is essential for ethnomusicologists to organize musical tools from every culture. It organizes instruments based on how they produce sound. The system is modeled after the Dewey Decimal Classification used in libraries. This allows for a highly organized and hierarchical structure. It uses numbers to create many specific sub-groups. This ensures that every instrument has a precise place in the scientific record.

To understand the mechanism, you must look at what vibrates to create sound. The system categorizes instruments by the nature of their sound-producing material. This is a more scientific approach than grouping by how an instrument looks. For example, a system might group all "wind instruments" together. However, Hornbostel–Sachs looks at the physical source of the vibration. This allows it to include any instrument from any part of the world. It creates a logical chain from broad categories to very specific types. This method helps researchers compare instruments from very different cultures.

The system includes several top-level classifications. One major group is the idiophones, which are labeled with the number 1. Idiophones produce sound through the vibration of the actual body of the instrument. This group does not rely on strings, membranes, or air columns. Within idiophones, there are four main sub-categories based on how they are played. These are struck idiophones (11), plucked idiophones (12), friction idiophones (13), and blown idiophones (14). Each sub-category is then divided further into even more specific groups. This creates a massive web of over 300 basic categories in total.

Struck idiophones (11) are a very large and diverse group. These instruments are set into vibration by being hit. Some are directly struck (111) by the player using hands, beaters, or even keyboards. This includes concussion idiophones, which are two parts struck together, like castanets or cymbals. It also includes percussion idiophones, where an object is struck against a non-sonorous item. This includes xylophones, where sticks strike a set of percussion sticks. Another type is indirectly struck idiophones (112), such as shaken rattles. In these, the player's movement causes the sound, like shaking a vessel rattle.

Plucked idiophones (12), also called lamellaphones, are another distinct type. These instruments are set in motion by plucking a part of the instrument. For example, the mbira or a jaw harp are part of this group. They can be in the form of a frame (121) or a comb (122). A jaw harp often uses the player's mouth cavity to help the sound resonate. Friction idiophones (13) are produced by rubbing, such as a singing bowl. Finally, blown idiophones (14) use moving air to create vibration. An example is the Aeolsklavier, which uses bellows to blow air onto wooden pieces.

The system also includes the membranophones (2). These instruments produce sound through the vibration of a tightly stretched membrane. This group includes almost all drums and even the kazoo. Struck membranophones (21) are the most common, such as the snare drum or timpani. These are further classified by the shape of the drum's body. Some bodies are bowl-shaped, while others are tubular or barrel-shaped. Some are even conical or hourglass-shaped. The system also notes if a drum has one membrane or two usable membranes.

The history of this system began in the late 19th century. It was based on a system by Victor-Charles Mahillon. He was the curator of musical instruments at the Brussels Conservatory. Mahillon originally divided instruments into four categories: air, string, membrane, and body. In 1914, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs expanded this idea. They published their version in Volume 46 of the Zeitschrift. An English translation appeared later in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961. The system remains relevant and was updated in 2011 for the Musical Instrument Museums Online Project.