University of Illinois Press, Society For Ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology

The Classification of Musical Instruments: Changing Trends in Research from the Late
Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to the 1990s

Author(s): Margaret Kartomi
Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Spring - Summer, 2001), pp. 283-314
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology
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VOL. 45, No. 2 ETHNOMUSICOLOGY SPRING/SUMMER 2001
The Classification of Musical

Instruments: Changing Trends
in Research from the Late Nineteenth
Century, with Special Reference to
the 1990s
MARGARET KARTOMI / Monash University
Introduction: Change Over the Past Hundred Years
Over the past hundred years or so, trends in research into the classifi-
cation of musical instruments have been in a state of flux, changing
with the particular needs of a particular time. Investigations in the 1990s
have a very different tenor and focus from those in the 1890s, but this is
not surprising, given the progress made in organology over the past cen-
tury. In this article I shall describe and examine the trends of the 1990s and
show how they differ from or resemble those of the earlier decades. I shall
also critically discuss recent scholarly publications and other contributions
to the debate about the methods and significance of classifications of mu-
sical instruments throughout the decade. The discussion is necessarily se-
lective, focusing on writings that exemplify research trends.1
To begin, we need briefly to visit the scene of a hundred years ago, and
to note in our journey across time how approaches to research into the
classification of instruments have changed since then. It is also construc-
tive to compare its development with that of the classification of biologi-
cal specimens, for although instrument classification studies eventually de-
veloped structurally similar methods, its progress lagged behind biology's,
as a comparison with Mayr's historical survey of classification methods in
biology (Mayr 1982) shows.
In the first three decades of the century, little of importance was pub-
lished in the field apart from the well-known Hornbostel and Sachs scheme
(1914). This scheme divides musical instruments at the highest level into
? 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
283
284 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 2001
four categories and subdivides them in a fairly systematic fashion at lower

levels, using a Dewey library-like numerical system to distinguish specimens
of instruments from each other at the most specific level. The number of
publications burgeoned in the 1930s and 1960s, leading to a peak of inter-
est and productivity in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by somewhat of a
decline in the 1990s. However, two books appeared at the turn of the de-
cade-one, On Concepts and Classifications of Musical Instruments by
this author and the other, Issues in Organology, edited by Sue Carole DeV-
ale. The latter book contains core studies by a collection of authors about
various cultural and technological groupings of instruments and related his-
torical aspects. The former critically draws together contributions made to
the history and theory of the classification of instruments, comparing them
with the history and theory of biological classification. It makes compari-
sons between classification schemes and the concepts that govern them
across a number of music-cultures, distinguishing between those schemes
that are imposed by observers ("observer-imposed") and those that emerge
informally from a culture ("culture-emerging"), with the former usually
being literarily-transmitted and the former orally-transmitted. The book also
discusses how these schemes reflect the prevailing musical thoughts and
concepts of or about instruments in a society, some of them being indica-
tive of the specific cultures from which they come and others embodying
threads of thought found in many music-cultures.
The classification of musical instruments began to be investigated in
earnest in Europe from the late nineteenth century, after centuries of reli-
ance on the binary string-wind classification (used or implied from the ar-
chaic Hellenic period (i.e. the sixth and early fifth centuries (BCE)2 or the
ternary string-wind-percussion division (dating from early in the common
era).3 Museologists were motivated in part by the practical need to system-
atize, catalogue, display and store the large collections of instruments that
had been acquired by museums from the eighteenth century onwards. In
1880, Victor-Charles Mahillon published the first systematic scheme of in-
strument classification suitable for worldwide use, designed mainly for use
in cataloguing the substantial collection of instruments from around the
world housed in the Brussels Conservatory Instrumental Museum.
The study of classification was also motivated by the desire to advance
musicological research. By 1914, the study of the classification of instru-
ments had become an important branch of systematic musicological endeav-
or. The modified and expanded version of Mahillon's scheme put forward
by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs in 1914 was intended to provide
a universalist classification of the world's instruments for both museologi-
cal and scholarly use. Classificatory work in the first half of the 20th centu-
Kartomi: The Classification of Musical Instruments 285
ry served as a basis for cross-cultural comparisons and for the construction,

by scholars such as Curt Sachs (e.g. Sachs 1940, 1962), of "highest laws"
(Adler 1885 [Mugglestone 1981:151), which amounted to universalist or
general theories about music and musical instruments.
The secret of the success-in its widespread adoption-of the Horn-
bostel and Sachs4 scheme is that it is a truly international system. The nu-
merical system used to distinguish specimens of instruments at the most
specific level proved to be a powerful means for finding and identifying
instruments. Moreover, being essentially numerical rather than lexical, it
is free of false linguistic connotations (Montagu, written com. 1998). For
example, when scholars refer to Southeast Asian "clarinets" or "oboes," they
could hypothetically suggest to a European-oriented reader or user that
these instruments share the materials, ergonomy and structure of Europe-
an clarinets and oboes, which would, of course, be false. For this reason it
was important that the verbal content of the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme
be translated from the original German into several languages. For exam-
ple, it was translated into Finnish by Timo Leisi6 and into Catalan and Span-
ish by M-Antonia Juan, with the most widely used translation, that into
English by Wachsmann and Baines, being published in the Galpin Society
Journal in 1961. The scheme has been and still is widely used in museums
across the world. When its users refer to an instrument by its Hornbostel
and Sachs number, they know it can denote the same instrument across
cultures, despite the fact that particular instruments have different names
in different languages (Montagu, ibid.). For this reason, the Hornbostel and
Sachs system, despite its inevitable imperfections, has served the develop-
ment not only of the science of organology but also of comparative cross-
cultural thinking around the world.
Of course trends and emphases keep changing in organology as in any
other field of research. From about the 1930s, a few museologists and
musicologists began to criticize the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme and at-
tempted to improve it. Some were less interested in the detail and more in
the logic and completeness of a scheme. Andre Schaeffner, for example,
felt the need to develop a perfectly logical bipartite scheme at the Musee
de l'Homme in 1932. The English writer Francis Galpin developed two
schemes (1910 and 1937) and included a new category of electrophones.
Meanwhile Jaap Kunst criticized comparative studies by scholars such as
Sachs on the grounds that too little precise knowledge had been accumu-
lated in many societies to warrant drawing comparisons, indeed that it was
dangerous to generalize about anything until all the facts were in (Kunst
1959). Another trend then emerged. Scholars narrowed their topics of in-
quiry down to detailed studies of particular instruments and ensembles.
Collectively they covered many music-cultures, past and present, usually

in a multi-faceted way and taking account of the social context as well as
the usual acoustic and morphological characteristics of instruments.
The Scandinavian writers Tobias Norlind (1932) and Karl Izikowitz
(1935) were the early conceptual thinkers behind this trend. Although
Norlind did not put forward his own method of classification, he developed
a broad concept of what an instrument represents, suggesting that elements
of performance practice, nomenclature, geographical distribution and cul-
tural history should be taken into account alongside such matters as mor-
phology, tone quality, and scales. Karl Izikowitz embraced an even broad-
er concept of instruments. He adhered rigidly to a general classification of
instruments according to acoustic principles, but nevertheless suggested
that the study of instruments as material objects ought to lead to investiga-
tions of the cultural, ceremonial, and social functions associated with them.
The dissatisfaction of these two scholars with the narrow concept of in-
struments that lay behind classifications until this time prepared the way
for a broader view.5
The German scholar Hans Heinz Drager also adopted an inclusive view.
Finding single-and limited-character division to be inadequate for his com-
plex concept of instruments, he simultaneously considered a large number
of distinctive characteristics at each step of division, not just one or a few.
He was perhaps the first organologist to engage in highly detailed classifi-
catory thinking, though he did not take the further conceptual step of ac-
tually classifying similar kinds of instruments by upward grouping. Drager
simply added his cluster of variables, or "facets" as Michael Ramey later
called them (Ramey 1974), to the entries of the Hornbostel and Sachs
scheme, also-like Galpin-adding a fifth, so-called "electrophone" class
to their classes of idiophones, membranophones, chordophones, and aero-
phones. Drager's clusters included technomorphic and acoustic facets, fac-
ets determining an instrument's ability to produce single or multiple voic-
es, and facets relating to musical movement, tone, duration, loudness,
dynamic range, registeral range, and timbre. They also included so-called
anthropomorphic factors, which were derived from relationships between
the performer and the instrument (Driger 1948:12-22).
In fact, then, Drager made an important theoretical contribution to the
field. After clarifying the task and the limitations of downward taxonomy by
logical division, or Systematik (Systematics) as he called it, he distinguished
it from the detailed cultural-historical, sociological, and philosophical stud-
ies of instruments, thus clearing the way for the development of an upward,
microtaxonomical or faceted mode of classificatory thinking. He was one of
the first scholars to make a major contribution to a more comprehensive
classificatory study of individual instruments (Kartomi 1990:178-81).
Interest in problems of instrument classification-as opposed to musi-

cal instruments themselves-had, however, waned somewhat by the 1950s.
Such studies were simply not in fashion. A number of ethnomusicologists
had come to regard "European systematic organology" (Montagu 1996:78)
as a rather dry research topic. By allegedly concentrating too much on struc-
tures and technological, ergonomic developments of instruments, some
found it to be too little concerned with what really ought to interest us,
namely the living music-cultures in which the instruments are used. In the
1960s, Alan Merriam argued in his influential Anthropology of Music (1964)
that music should be studied not just as sound and technology but in the
full context of its social meaning. Merriam's approach served as a catalyst
in the field of ethnomusicology, encouraging scholars to make fully con-
textual studies of music, including musical instruments.
Between the 1970s and the mid-1980s, a number of scholars in Europe,
North America, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere focused on making increas-
ingly detailed studies of specific instruments in context, bringing a mix of
acoustic, morphological, ergonomic, biological, ethnographic, anthropolog-
ical, sociological, and historical facets to their studies. Arising from them,
some systematically-inclined organologists devised new classificatory
schemes, still attempting to solve the problems of classifying instruments
logically and inclusively in context. Among schemes devised were those
by Montagu and Burton (1971), Mantle Hood (1971), Ramey (1974), Malm
(1974), Heyde (1975), Hartmann (1978), Sakurai (1980/1), Mitani (1980),
and the working models published by CIMCIM in its bulletin6 (1983-4,
1985, 1987; see Dournon 1992:252).' Ramey was one scholar who made
significant progress towards detailed upward classification by "faceted
grouping" (Ramey 1974) or "grouping by inspection" (as the biologist Mayr
called it, see Mayr 1982), developing Driger's method with the aid of a
computer." Most of these scholars thought it necessary to develop very
close, detailed classificatory methods, yet none of the new schemes they
devised succeeded in replacing the one developed by Mahillon and expand-
ed by Hornbostel and Sachs, which remains in worldwide use in museums
and scholarly endeavors to this day. Nor did they develop an upward meth-
od of classification to match the upward method arrived at in biology in
Hellenic Greece and revived again in Europe two centuries ago (Mayr 1982).
Downward classification by logical division developed over 2,000 years
ago in Plato's writings and is commonly found in many of the world's cul-
tures. For the upward classificatory method to develop, it was necessary
to adopt a concept of specimens that allowed for their variability and
changeableness. Such a concept was, however, very old. Aristotle was
strongly aware of the complexity and variability of specimens and ridiculed
the idea of classifying biological specimens in an elaborate, downward,
logically-based hierarchy. He was interested in species rather than genera,

and chose to classify them at low levels of generality by detailed inspec-
tion (ibid.: 150). But his followers were misled, and applied logical division
even to biological specimens. It was not until the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries, between the publications of the botanist Adanson in 1763
and the naturalist Darwin in 1859, that downward classification was ques-
tioned and gradually replaced by upward classification based on "popula-
tion thinking." This thinking rejects the notion of the "typical, average in-
dividual" and focuses on the detailed individual, not the type (ibid.:263).
In biology, the empirical, upward method is now employed by every mod-
ern taxonomist, at least in the initial stages of the classifying procedure
(ibid.: 192).
It was not until 1969 that a method of close classification of musical
instruments based on upward thinking was devised. Oskir Elschek (1969a,
1969b) began to classify a large corpus of European folk aerophones by
scanning their attributes.9 First he made a close, detailed inspection of
mouthpieces and other aspects of the aerophones. He then classified them
according to increasingly higher levels of generality, in order to isolate
variants, groups of variants, and types. Elschek devised a set of special graph-
ic symbols for his method, which he dubbed typological. However, Elschek
defines the term differently from biologists. To him, "typological" means a
"method based on scanning the totality of the data and isolating variants,
groups of variants, and types," whereby a type is not, however, to be re-
garded as a paragon or archetype (Elschek 1969a:33). Typologies are based
on a multi-character or multi-dimensional method of arranging objects ac-
cording to the simultaneous intersection of categories.
Following in Driger's footsteps, Elschek distinguished his method from
the systematic approach adopted by Hornbostel and Sachs and other down-
ward-thinking taxonomists. Elschek described systematics as a preliminary
sorting of instruments into classes, in which the initial sorting is based on
an act of perception or intuition, and only sometimes reflects historical
relationships, whereas typology, he wrote, is based on empirical observa-
tion and historical implication. He continued the comparison by pointing
out that in systematics, any perceptual initial sorting soon gives way to
logically-based ordering, as the aim of reaching abstract generalizations at
the uppermost level begins to be realized. Systematics, he said, is not de-
signed to depict or classify the complex details of variable forms of the same
or similar instruments, as is needed in a first study of a collection of instru-
ments, e.g. folk aerophones; nor is it designed to depict the complex de-
tails of historical change in instruments. After detailed research into indi-
vidual specimens in their theoretical, technical, and historical aspects, he
orders the detail with the aim of grouping the instruments by type.
Kartomi. The Classification of Musical Instruments 289
While Elschek argued that a clear distinction needs to be made between

the systematic and typological approaches, he did not, however, recom-
mend throwing out the baby-the Hornbostel and Sachs system-with the
bath water. He wished to use his typological method in addition to the
systematic, indulging not only in upward but also downward as well as
lateral thinking. Thus he saw typology as complementary to systematics.
In fact he recommended starting a taxonomical study of a group of instru-
ments by identifying and sifting them into groups with the aid of the Horn-
bostel and Sachs or other systematic scheme. At the second stage, he sug-
gested, each instrument should be studied in detail and classified
typologically into variants, groups of variants, types, and groups of types,
proposing these names as working terms. At the third stage, he recommend-
ed, the low-level groupings of the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme should be
compared with those derived typologically, serving either to endorse or
correct them. The procedure then continues to alternate between down-
ward, macrotaxonomic thinking and upward, microtaxonomic thinking, in
order to clarify any problems that may remain.
Greater notice needs to be taken of Elschek's contribution to the taxo-
nomic study of instruments (1969a, 1969b). As a scholar working from the
1960s in the relative isolation of eastern Europe, his contributions to instru-
ment classification theory and practice have not yet been taken very seri-
ously: certainly, they are not yet widely accepted nor even understood.
Picken, for example, has argued that it is unnecessary to devise an upward
scheme such as Elschek's because the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme can
easily be adjusted to remedy any apparent inadequacies (Picken 197
Yet, as Elschek argued, the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme is in fact
tially static and ahistorical, designed as it was to cover all possible i
ments independently of time and place. Simply to expand Hornbost
Sachs's method or empirically to adjust it is not to solve all problem
the upward and the downward methods of Elschek and Hornboste
Sachs respectively have essentially different purposes. The so-called
logical or-to use a commonly used term in biology-microtaxonom
method aims at making precise, ordered investigations into minute
and then proceeds to construct low-to medium-level classifications of g
or variants of instruments. Conversely, systematic or macrotaxon
method aims at providing a useful means of information storage and ret
of all or many instruments, beginning at the high-level classification of
imens and moving to lower levels. The two methods are complementary;
and both clearly need further refinement (Kartomi 1990:201-2).
By the 1990s, scholars on the whole had stopped creating new large-
scale classification schemes, finding little point in re-inventing the wheel
over and over again. A notable exception to this, however, is the scheme
put forward by Genevieve Dournon (Dournon 1992). Growing out of her

twenty years of experience as a museum curator and her study of the col-
lections of the Mus&e de l'Homme, Dournon's scheme is intended to be a
conceptual tool with a practical application.10 She blends the Hornbostel
and Sachs scheme with the bi-partite system devised by Andre Schaeffner
(1931, 1932), a theorist whose publications have not had the widest in-
fluence. Schaeffner divides instruments into two principal categories, de-
rived from the uniform principle of the nature and structure of the vibrat-
ing material:" those with solid vibrating bodies (subdivided according to
whether flexible, susceptible of tension or not); and those in which air is
the primary vibrating factor. A consideration of the means by which the
instrument is set in vibration is optional, and may not occur at the same
level of subdivision when applied across the four categories of the Horn-
bostel and Sachs system.
Dournon argues that the adoption of an unambiguous primary division
such as that provided by Schaeffner enables the curator to resolve the per-
ceived difficulties in the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme: the lack of a uni-
form standard for establishing lower order categories (a problem also id

tified by Sakurai 1981:824), the crudity of high-level divisions, th
consequent borderline cases, and the high level of generality. The schem
intelligibility and applicability are thus improved. While Dournon r
the Dewey numerical code as a useful "open" system, her concern
avoid too great an increase in the number of digits. By incorporating as
of Hornbostel and Sachs' system, she is able to avoid the problems of Sc
fner's system, particularly in the classification of idiophones, which is
most challenging category. By way of demonstration, Dournon lead
through a great variety of the world's instruments in order to discover
common features that link an abundance of forms. Ultimately, however
test of the system she proposes will be its practical applicability, i
widely adopted.
As we have noted, Dournon's effort at devising a comprehensive clas
cation system stands alone in the literature of the 1990s. There is a clea
realization now that no single scheme can ever be devised that is su
for all purposes and satisfies the demands both of inclusiveness and
True, a number of scholars have treated the Hornbostel and Sachs s
as a flexible nucleus for expansion, concentrating their efforts on the c
study of certain key areas. But in the process of improving the accurac
a given classification of particular instruments, scholars have increasing
paved the way for a deeper integration of downward and upward ty
gies. In addition, recently, some scholars have felt an urgent need t
lect data about the indigenous and localized concepts and classificatio
of musical instruments in many fragile music-cultures before they disap
along with the widespread destruction of natural habitats, creatures and

traditional life-styles in a globalized world. Concomitantly, there has been
a shift of focus from the search for universals to inter- and intra-cultural
commonalities between classification schemes and their components.
There is also a new trend to study schemes that have emerged natural-
ly among groups of jazz and popular musicians for practical music-makin
purposes and for reasons of ideology or identity. For example, from th
early 1960s, folk music enthusiasts in the USA tended to distinguish elec
tric from acoustic instruments, while rock and roll players classified th
guitars in their ensembles mainly by manufacturer. This latter trend i
reflected in the layout of the Nashville Music Instruments Museum's Ro
Acuft Musical Collection at Opryland, where instruments are arranged b
manufacturer groupings (verbal communication from James Mannheim, see
Kartomi 1990:285).
The Hornbostel and Sachs System as a Flexible Nucleus for

Taxonomical Expansion
One of the key publications of the 1990s is the collection of essays
entitled Issues in Organology, edited by Sue Carole DeVale (Selected Re-
ports in Ethnomusicology VIII, 1990). This book contains several articles
touching on theoretical and practical issues facing organologists who are
interested in classification theory and practice today. Unlike in earlier stud-
ies, the authors focus not on "the perfect classification" but on the process-
es, results, and socio-musical significance of classificatory thinking in vari-
ous historical periods and cultural contexts. Several of the articles usefully
extend our knowledge of concepts about instruments and their classifica-
tions, or contribute case studies of indigenous or local instrument classifi-
cation schemes that have not previously been studied.
In one article, a research team comprising Michael Bakan, Wanda Bry-
ant, Guangming Li, David Martinelli, and Kathryn Vaughn at the University
of California at Los Angeles suggested a useful, indeed ingenious, way of
classifying amplified and electronic instruments within the Hornbostel and
Sachs scheme, but without adding a fifth category of electrophones.12 In
the decades since Hornbostel and Sachs published their scheme, rapidly
developing technology produced electric and electronic instruments that
do not fit logically into any of that scheme's four major categories. As the
five authors point out, sequencers, sound processors, amplified, and elec-
tronic instruments which do not produce sound directly are logically in-
appropriate within the parameters of the Hornbostel and Sachs system,
because it is based on a concept which holds instruments to be sound-pro-
ducing objects. However, within Western culture and its areas of influence,
electrophones are considered to be an essential part of the musical creative

process and may therefore be incorporated into that scheme. In any case,
the system proposed by the team is not intended to be the one and only
way of classifying electric and electronic instruments. On the contrary, it
is to be seen as one possible model which others may be stimulated to use
to accommodate the inevitable future changes in electronic technology and
their effects on musical instruments.
Though they were unaware of it at the time, the authors' close stud
of a group of instruments and their classification follows in the footsteps
of two earlier generations of organologists, that of Elschek and his student
and colleagues. As we have noted, Elschek adopted a typological approa
to the study of instruments, beginning by systematically organizing d
associated with an instrument at the most specific level, and then moving
upwards to ever higher levels of generality until he reached a set of high-
est-level categories, such as Hornbostel and Sachs' four categories of id
phones, membranophones, aerophones, and chordophones.
Bakan et al. also made close studies of instruments, suggesting that
details of each relevant instrument be incorporated into the Hornbostel and
Sachs scheme by adding a clarifying suffix at the end of its classificati
number, which is derived from the existing scheme. For example, the let-
ter A may be added to an existing classificatory number for an instrument
which is amplified, or the letter E for an instrument that produces sound
electronically; thus an electric guitar would be classified as 321.322-E. Some
other instruments proved more difficult to classify. They include th
"scratch turntable" used in rap music, an instrument which can, however,
be classified as an electric scraped idiophone and be given the numbe
112.2-E. It is necessary, they write, to create an entirely new classification
scheme for instruments such as sequencers and sound processors, whic
do not directly produce sound but whose application drastically alters t
way in which played tones are finally heard (see their Appendix E). Th
classificatory thinking is based on a chain concept that links the perform-
er, the instrument, the modifier, and the acoustic space receiver.
Another trend-from the 1980s-has been to re-emphasize the fact th
the human body is a musical instrument. In all likelihood it was the human
body that was the first instrument to produce music. To this day, it remai
one of the most versatile and complex of instruments and has frequent
been used as such in new music over the past few decades. Vocal music,
which human beings can produce with their brains, throats, vocal cord
tongues, mouths, and lungs, ranges from the subtle and intimate to the mos
dynamic and virtuosos, as in Balinese kecak music, where dancers repe
the percussive syllable cak in elaborate interlocking rhythms. Likewis
percussive music produced by the human body ranges from the breathtak-
ingly fast rhythms produced by arm and hand chest-beating-as in Acehnese

seudati music (Snouck Hurgronje 1906)-to slow to moderately fast rhyth-
mic drones-as in the accompaniment to Australian Aboriginal women's
ceremonial singing of the Western desert (Kartomi 1980).
A term first proposed by Olsen (1980) for the category of instruments
that comprise body parts is corpophones. The category has ancient origins,
however. As Jairazbhoy has asserted, the corpophone category "seems to
have been anticipated (at least in a general sense) in ancient India where
we find reference to gatra (human body)" (Jairazbhoy 1990a:72). It is true
that the Indian writer Narada in the early second millennium CE included
the singing voice and hand clapping in one category of his five-category
classification of instruments (Narada 1920). But members of a number of
other ancient music-cultures have also regarded certain uses of the human
body as being analogous or homologous to the uses of musical instruments
and have reflected this in their classifications. For example, Hellenic Greeks
distinguished between animate and inanimate instruments.
In the second half of the century, then, organologists have been able
to refine the parameters by which the higher-level classes can be defined
and applied in classifications, through close typological studies of particu-
lar groups of instruments. For example, in a music-archaeological study of
instruments used in the ancient Harappan culture in the Indus valley, Reis
Flora emphasized the need, as more specimens come to light, for a more
sophisticated analysis and understanding of the materials of instruments
than the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme can offer for their classification
(Flora 1998). In another study, Flora's detailed organological descrip

and systematic analysis of the fingering patterns and performance t
niques associated with the Hindustani shahnai and the Western symp
ic oboe suggest that their respective morphology and associated per
mance techniques are so different that they require reconsideration of t
usual classification as organological cousins (Flora 1992).
Several scholars recently suggested that amendments be made to
lected instrumental categories or sub-categories in the Hornbostel an
chs scheme on the basis of close study of individual specimens. In 1
for example, Le Gonidec published a proposal for a "universal" classi
tion of flutes (Le Gonidec 1997), based on the Hornbostel and Sachs schem
(421: Edge instruments or flutes). The article draws in large part on
analytical study of 1200 examples of flutes in the collection of the M
de l'Homme in Paris. Not surprisingly, the theoretical positioning of
work shows the influence of the classificatory ideas of both Andre Schae
fner (to whose memory her article is dedicated) and Genevieve Dour
(under whose aegis she carried out her work), particularly in its thrust t
wards high levels of specificity in the lower classificatory divisions. It is
this latter aspect that the strength of her system is to be found, inasmuch
as her careful observation of the construction, ergology and acoustic be-
haviour of flutes across cultures has the potential not only to solve flute-
classificatory problems but to change established organological ideas about
the cross-cultural phenomenon of flutes.
Following Schaeffner, as does the work of Dournon, Le Gonidec's point
of departure is the nature and structure of the vibrating material. Again like
Schaeffner, Le Gonidec argues that the physical structure of the instrument,
not its playing method, should be the main criterion of class, so that the
classificatory divisions and nomenclature arise from the intersection be-
tween the way the air is set in vibration and the structure of the instrument,
focusing particularly on the morphology of the mouthpiece and its relation-
ship to the edge.
Le Gonidec preserves Hornbostel and Sachs's first level of distinction
between flutes without duct (where the musician's mouth or nose "forms"
the duct) and flutes where the duct is part of the body of the instrument
(Le Gonidec 1997:26). From this point, however, her system begins to di-
verge from that of Hornbostel and Sachs, as she introduces the relationship
between the mouthpiece and the edge at the second level of classification,
producing three categories (end mouthpiece and edge, end mouthpiece and
shifted edge, side mouthpiece and edge) as against Hornbostel and Sachs's
two (i.e. end-blown [421-11] and side-blown [421.12]). She dismisses
Hornbostel and Sachs's distinction between instruments having a single
tube (421.111) and or a set of tubes (421.112) as not really pertinent to the
classificatory process.13 Similarly, the presence or absence of fingerholes
does not appear as a principle of subdivision in Le Gonidec's scheme. In-
stead, she proceeds through a system of opposition towards an increasing-
ly complex classification of the mouthpiece device. The article is generously
illustrated, not just with examples of the instruments cited, but also with
diagrams illustrating the various properties of the mouthpiece that form the
basis of the scheme. A glossary of organological terms used is appended.
As Le Gonidec's classification of the recorder clearly shows, one conse-
quence of the increase of specificity afforded by the lower orders of her
scheme is a significant increase in the number of digits needed to complete
the descriptive cataloguing of the instrument-a factor which may mitigate
against the scheme's practical application. In the Hornbostel and Sachs
scheme, only the most general and unspecific features of the instrument
determine its classification, generating four groups of numbers. Dournon
occupies a middle ground between the broad generality of Hornbostel and
Sachs and the high level of specificity of Le Gonidec, incorporating extra
features concerning the position of the mouthpiece and some details of its
morphology to produce six characterizing digits after the general class num-
ber (411 [Flutes], Dournon 1992: 279, 283). Le Gonidec, on the other hand,
produces ten descriptive subdivisions (the greatest number in her scheme)
which follow the general class number (421), further refining the description
of the duct and the mouthpiece to the point of apparently complete specificity
(Le Gonidec 1997:36). While Dournon, as a practical museologist, was at pains
to avoid the excessive multiplication of digits, it is difficult to see how this
could be so, if the aim of classification is exactness of description.
Continuing the expansion of the aerophone category, Montagu a sub-
stantial study of reed instruments leading to a critique of the reed section
of the Hornbostel and Sachs classification scheme. In the first fascicle of a
catalogue of his own collection of reed instruments, he proposes a ne

classificatory procedure for reed-blown winds (Montagu 1998). He arg
that their classification should not be based on Hornbostel and Sachs' cri-
terion of the type of reed (whether single, double or free), because

aspect is irrelevant to the instruments' acoustic behavior. Instead it shou
be based on the shape of the bore, which has a fundamental acoustic
fect on the instrument's performance and has the benefit of being imm
diately apparent to the non-expert eye of some general museum cur
and would therefore mitigate against incorrect classifications.
Montagu also disputes the basis of Hornbostel and Sachs' classifica
of aerophones, i.e., that the air itself is the primary vibrator, where "p
mary vibrator" means "what it is that generates sound." This criterion,
points out, applies only to flutes. In the case of reed instruments, the p
mary vibrator is one or more idiophonic lamellae or reeds, while in the
of brass instruments, he argues that it is the player's lips. He admit
the length, shape, and vibratory mode of the coupled air column establi
es the pitch of wind instruments proper (classified under the Hornb
and Sachs category number 42). However, in the case of free aeroph
(classified under 41), Hornbostel and Sachs defined the vibrating air as b
"not confined by the instrument," which is problematic. Southeast
mouth organs, for example, will only sound when coupled to an air
umn via fingerholes; thus the free reed, like any other reed, is used on
with finger holes, which then come under 422.3, among the wind in
ments proper. Similarly, the pitch of organ reed stops is determined by
vibrating length of the reed, which is fixed by the bridle on the reed.
ever, the length or volume of the pipe/resonator must match that o
reed or the coupled system will not function. The logical classificato
procedure, Montagu proposes, is to place each reed type under the a
priate section of the numerical grouping 42, with the free reeds pl
under 422.3, while reserving 422.3 for ribbon reeds. Then there could th
be two separate sections for the flutes and the trumpets (e.g. numb
41 and 42 respectively), he argues.
In his catalogue, Montagu divides reed pipes, which Hornbostel and

Sachs classified under the number 412, into three types: the concussion
reeds (412.11) taken together with the double reed instruments (422.1),
the percussion reeds (412.12) with the single-reed instruments (422.2), and
the free reeds (412.13) taken together with the free reeds (422.3) and plac-
ing the ribbon reeds (412.14) at the end, followed by a category of retreat-
ing reeds (established by Henry Balfour through his labels and master la-
bels in the Pitt Rivers Museum, but unrecognized by Hornbostel and Sachs),
giving them the new number of 412.15.
Also in 1998, a relatively accurate new scheme for classifying brass-wind
instruments on the basis of their measurable acoustic properties was pre-
sented by Arnold Myers. The high degree of precision of schemes such as
Myers' could help curators to differentiate between sub-classes of instru-
ments in a way that the Hornbostel and Sachs system cannot. Again, such
precisely based schemes would not, of course, replace the use of the Horn-
bostel and Sachs system in a multi-class instrument collection, but could
serve as a useful supplement to it.
Myers' research into the acoustic-based classification of brass-wind in-
struments identified characters of division which depend solely on the
geometry of the bore profile determined by the instrument-maker, relating
it also to the characterization of the instrument as experienced by players
and listeners. Eschewing vague though widely-used terms such as "cylin-
drical bore" and "conical bore," he suggested substituting for them the
following six measurable parameters: (K) a ratio of cross-sectional diame-
ters expressing a kind of conicity; (C) a ratio of lengths expressing a kind
of cylindricality; (V) the cup volume of the associated mouthpiece; (L) the
length of the overall air column without operating any slide, key or valve;
(Dmid) the bore diameter at the point of equal distance from both ends;
and (Umax) the peak value of the horn function as a measure of the prop-
erty of a bell flare (the bell flare reflects sound waves of various frequen-
cies, trapping part of the sound energy inside the instrument and letting
part escape). The result of assigning critical values to these six characters
is a rigorous classification scheme, which successfully distinguishes all the
most common and many of the rare types of brass instruments. This classifi-
cation scheme would be of use to museums containing varied brass-wind
collections14 and to scholars analyzing large sample populations.15
Not only acoustic studies but also the history of musical acoustics, es-
pecially from the early seventeenth century, are relevant to our understand-
ing of classification. Recently, Jamie Kassler has researched aspects of the
mechanics and acoustics of musical instruments and their parts as models
or experimental analogues of knowing, feeling and moving, drawing atten-
tion to how classification has been understood in a particular historical
period (for example, in Kassler 1995). She suggests that the Hombostel and
Sachs scheme's reliance on acoustical aspects of instruments should be
revised in light of changing knowledge of acoustics.
Historical Comparisons of Classificatory Ideas

An interesting addition to our knowledge of the beginnings of organol-
ogy is found in the first of two articles contributed to Issues in Organolo-
gy by the well-known Indianist ethnomusicologist Nazir Alli Jairazbhoy. This
article gives an original account of the life and influence of the "catalytic
agent" Sourindro Mohun Tagore on music in India. It mentions Tagore's
contact with the pioneering curator, classification theorist, journal editor
and author, Mahillon (1841-1924) who, as mentioned above, devised the
first classification of instruments suitable for use worldwide.
Jairazbhoy describes how Tagore, a wealthy "lesser raja" (Jairazbhoy
1990a:74), devoted a great deal of time to studying and propagating Indi-
an music, donating examples of Indian instruments to many museums and
institutions in Europe, the USA, and even parts of Asia. He gave many rare
Indian instruments to the Royal Academy of Belgium, which then asked
Mahillon to advise on their disposition and write a descriptive catalogue
of them. Tagore also donated a collection of books and manuscripts in
English, Bengali, and Sanskrit, some of which were written in English by
Tagore himself. Jairazbhoy believes, with good reason, that Mahillon had
read some of this literature at the time of developing his classification sys-
tem. He was certainly acquainted with Tagore, and even published a bio-
graphical essay on his life and work (ibid.:74-5). Jairazbhoy assumes that
among the works which Mahillon read was an account of the four-catego-
ry classification of instruments used (among other schemes) in India from
ancient times and presented in the treatise Natya?astra (probably written
in the first few centuries CE [see Bharata-Muni 1961]). He believes that
Mahillon used this four-category Indian scheme as the basis of the system
that he then developed for use in the Brussels museum and which later
became the basis of the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme. A particular point
at issue is the question of whether this indebtedness has been appropriately
acknowledged.
The similarities-and differences-between the fourfold classification
of instruments in the Natyas~stra and the classification developed by Horn-
bostel and Sachs have been noted by musicologists throughout the centu-
ry (specifically Galpin [1910] 1965:27; Kunst 1959:56; Ellingson 1979:547;
Deva 1980:128 and Kartomi 1990:62-63). Of course, Mahillon's and the
ancient Indian schemes are not alone in exhibiting observable similarities.
There are similarities between the basically three-, four-, and five-category
schemes of many music-cultures-ancient and modern-the world over,

which is hardly surprising given that many of them are based on the mode
of sound activation as the main category of division at the highest level. An
essential difference between the ancient Indian scheme and Mahillon's is
that it is not, nor was it intended to be, a scheme suitable for world-w
use. The Indian scheme was developed with the specific needs of an
cient Indian society in mind, just as Mahillon's scheme-with its thr
els of sub-division-was designed to fulfil the quite different dema
late nineteenth century European society. In fact, Jairazbhoy's de
discover "the first" culture or person to use a term contributes little t
understanding of instruments and related issues. Origin theories are n
unprovable but can be intellectually arid and sometimes even misle
An Increased Focus on Local/Indigenous Concepts

and Classifications
Until about 1990, scholarly awareness of indigenous and other cult

emerging, localized classifications of instruments was almost non-exis
As noted above, I use the term "culture-emerging" to distinguish tho
called "natural" classifications that emerge informally from within a
or sub-culture, whether expressed in oral or written form or bot
"observer-imposed" classifications that are conceived and imposed
insider or outsider musician, scholar, or museologist, usually in w
form.16 There is a gulf between classifications that emerge from wit
culture or sub-culture and classifications that are conceived, indeed im-
posed, from without, both in terms of goals and of conceptual frameworks.
Culture-emerging schemes tend to reflect the broad socio-cultural ideas of
the culture that produced them, including-in some cases-ideas about
performance practice, the way sounds are produced, the other arts, reli-
gion, philosophy, sound structure, social uses of instruments and ensem-
bles, or combinations of two or more of these factors. Some classifications
embody a culture's profoundest ideas or belief systems. Observer-imposed
systems, on the other hand, are often based on the goals of the individual
investigator, whether scientific, museological, or other. For example, they
may be limited to morphological or acoustic aspects (Kartomi 1990:13).
It was only in the post-Colonial period (post ca. 1970) that the culture-
emerging classification schemes of various peoples began to be noticed as
important sources for scholars. Among the first were discussions of Are'are
(Zemp 1978), Minangkabau (Kartomi 1990:211-15, 216-25), T'boli (Mano-
lete Mora, pers. com. 1987) and Finnish-Karelian schemes ( Leisi6 1977).
One example of a recent article that extends our knowledge of indig-
enous concepts and classifications of instruments is Victor Fuks' account
of the classification, symbols, and meaning of the whole gamut of Wai~ipi

musical instruments in the imperiled Brazilian Indian community in which
they developed. Music and instruments, he writes, are ethnic markers that
help to reinforce their culture's conception of its identity through various
mythical and practical references, including references in performances to
myths. Thus, instruments not only transcend time and space but also re-
vive memorable experiences, induce emotions, and maintain the continu-
ity of the culture (Fuks 1990:145). Fuks presents a classificatory scheme
based partly on indigenous names of instruments and mythically-associat-
ed animals, birds, or spirits, and partly on his own imposed categories,
including the place and context of a performance (Fuks 1990:170-72).
Steven Cornelius gives another example of an indigenous classification
of instruments based on new data collected from informants in his article
on musical instruments of Santeria in contemporary New York. From t
ideological perspective of the local people, musical instruments fall und
the provenance of various owning deities, whereby instruments made
iron belong to the warrior deity, gourds to the river goddess, and drum
to the lightning deity. Three main types of instrumental ensemble used in
public ceremonies are classified in a related manner. As Cornelius puts i
"Sacred conception empowers physical artifact" (Cornelius 1990:138).
Among the articles in Issues in Organology (DeVale 1990) that expan
our knowledge of indigenous concepts of instruments is Ellingson's illu
trated discussion of Nepalese Newar instruments, which embody the go
and other parameters, Harnish's study of the double-reedpreret of Lombok
Balinese, Ledang's study of Norwegian bark flutes, and Olsen's discussio
of Etruscan and Columbian Sinmi instruments. The concepts described
being associated with these instruments can serve as the basis of local
classificatory thinking, or contribute to it. Garaj's 1998 typological research
into Slovakian bagpipes, Schneider's 1998 study of folk aerophones, and
Bachmann-Geiser's 1998 study of Swiss Alphorns also expand our knowl-
edge of indigenous concepts of instruments.
Oldroyd (1992:106) asserts that indigenous or local-as opposed to
worldwide-classifications of instruments are "fascinating" but are not
much needed as a search tool compared to the way that a reader may use
the Dewey system in the library or the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme in
museums and other." is partly true, yet museologists are in fact beginning
to use indigenous schemes (where known) in addition to the widely-
known Hornbostel and Sachs schemes in their public exhibitions, being
more aware than in the past of the different kinds of explanatory power
which they possess, as opposed to scholar-devised schemes.
For example, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford recently used both the
traditional Chinese eight-foldpa yin scheme and the Mahillon, Hornbostel
and Sachs system in a display of Chinese instruments (verbal com., Marga-

ret Birley). And the exhibition of the 1927 prison-camp-made gamelan Digul
at Monash University in 1999 used a scheme developed by the Javanese
scholar Martopangrawit, who divides gamelan instruments according to
whether they "uphold" the melody (lagu) or the rhythm/meter/tempo (ira-
ma), as well as the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme.
By the 1990s, it had become clear that organologists need to collect
much more data about both culture-emerging and observer-imposed classifi-
cations. In fact, we know much more about the observer-imposed schemes
of a very few cultures, especially those of nineteenth and twentieth centu-
ry Western societies, than about the many culture-emerging schemes of
societies in the rest of the world. Naturally, in societies whose beliefs, prac-
tices, histories and classificatory schemes have been perpetuated largely by
oral transmission (as in many Southeast Asian, Pacific, and West African
societies), there is much less historical data available than in societies whose
schemes have been transmitted mainly by literary means (as in many soci-
eties in Europe, the Middle East, China, and South Asia). In the study of
culture-emerging schemes, the scholar's task is to discover the relevant
culture's semantic domains that govern a scheme, avoiding the importation
of his or her preconceptions.
Have many scholars taken up the call in the early 1990s to gather data
about the ways in which various societies conceptualize about and classi-
fy musical instruments? Several scholars have responded by making new
case studies of the methods and reasons for developing indigenous/culture-
emerging and/or scholar-imposed classification schemes, thus extending our
knowledge of how and why societies classify instruments.
Henry Johnson, for example, published an ethnographic survey of tra-
ditional and modern schemes in Japan that are divided into two categories:
the indigenous and the foreign. His is the first study to present an overview
of Japanese classifications of instruments. He outlined both traditional and
modern Japanese schemes, including the traditional hikimono, fukimono,
and uchimono (plucked, blown, and struck object) scheme, with the lat-
ter category subdivided into rubbed and shaken objects (Johnson 1996).
This scheme has been in use since at least as early as the Heian era (794-
1185) along with several foreign schemes, including the Chinese pa yin (an
eight-category scheme based on the main material of which an instrument
is made).
However, in everyday parlance, many Japanese still use a translated
Western classification which they borrowed in the Meiji era (1848-1912)
of intense Westernization, a scheme which divides instruments into the
stringed, wind, and struck categories. In addition, many Japanese museol-
ogists and scholars tend to use the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme - with
a fifth category added for electric instruments-for practical purposes and

organological research. Among the several recently proposed innovative
schemes is a six-fold division of instruments devised by the Kunitachi Col-
lege of Music in 1996 (Sumi Gunji et al., eds.). This scheme, which is based
on an instrument's vibrating body, includes massophones (from rittai, sol-
id [instruments]), cupophones (from kudoittai, hollow solid), clavophones
(from bo, stick), tabulophones (from ita, board), chordophones (from gen,
string) and membranophones (from maku, membrane). New schemes
developed by Japanese scholars are used, in the main, only by organolo-
gists, not museologists.
Taken all together, these schemes reflect Japanese cultural values. As
Johnson writes, "the profusion of downward classifications of musical in-
struments in Japanese culture actually reflects Japanese social structure
where special importance is placed on knowing one's place within a mul-
titude of hierarchies" (Johnson 1996:27).
Unlike the single-character classification of most earlier schemes, schol-
ars studying culture-emerging classification schemes in the 1990s have
usually adopted a multi-faceted approach, which included the relationships
between the instruments and their social contexts. We have managed to
extend our knowledge of previously unstudied, or insufficiently studied,
indigenous classifications of instruments in selected music-cultures, past and
present, including some music-cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and
the Americas. Still, however, schemes of many music-cultures throughout
the world remain unknown.
One geographical area of instrument classification studies about whic

very little research has so far been made is Aboriginal Australia.18 The
and dances of the many Aboriginal linguistic-musical groups are acc
nied by a total of approximately thirty "sound instruments" (Robin
1999), including gum-leaves (Ryan and Patten 1995), clapsticks, an
didjeridu, which were dispersed and exchanged via migration and tr
routes. We know that Aboriginal hunters and gatherers tradition
classified the flora and fauna in terms of the local environment and culture
in a highly intricate fashion, but we do not know how or even whether they
classified their sound instruments. Ryan is currently preparing a typology
of Aboriginal leaf reed instruments, but other Aboriginalist ethnomusicolo-
gists have apparently not yet obtained such systematic data for typological
study of other instruments in the field. One early observer-imposed scheme
was developed in 1933 by the anthropologist Keith Kennedy, who divid-
ed the Aboriginal instruments he had observed into four categories, i.e.
percussion, friction, wind, and stringed instruments (Kennedy 1933). Lat-
er some ethnomusicologists documented the existence of unique local in-
stniruments in various parts of Australia, and sometimes classified them ac-
cording to the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme. Alice Moyle listed collections
of Aboriginal Australian instruments dating from 1899 and mapped them
according to type, distribution, and function (Moyle 1966). In her view,
Aborigines tended to recognize music events according to function rather
than sound character (Moyle 1974:viii), which suggests that some groups
may also have grouped instruments according to function.
Another neglected but promising area of indigenous instrument classifi-
cation research is found in the villages of modern Greece. According to
Lambros Liavis, Greek villages commonly divide instruments into percus-
sion (i.e. krousta, from an ancient Greek verb meaning "to hit"), wind
(pneusta) and string instruments (enchorda), but no research has yet been
carried out on this or other widely used localized classifications. The region-
al divisions of Greece, the feasts and rituals, and the division between tra-
ditional rural and popular music provide other approaches to the classifi-
cation of instruments. Thus, certain musical styles and instruments are
associated with each sub-region, town, and village, though with the growth
of urbanization in the past century and a half, such units of difference have
decreased. Likewise some instruments are associated with given feasts and
rituals. And the demotikai (traditional rural music) and laikia (popular
music) and associated instruments are commonly sub-divided into group-
ings of two and three respectively; i.e. the demotika sub-divides into the
akritic and the klephtik cycles of traditional music and the laika into the
entechna, elafro, and rebetika genres of music. Kipps Horn is researching
culture-emerging vocal and instrumental classifications of rebetika ensem-
bles among communities in Greece and the Greek community in Mel-
bourne, as well as a historically-based classification derived from data gath-
ered on the evolution of rebetika music.19
The relationship between musical instruments and their social context

also informs Bonnie Wade's study of Indian miniature paintings of t
Mughal period (Wade 1998), which contributes, in the last of its six ch
ters, to an ongoing tradition of iconographical research in organology. Al
though Wade is concerned with identifying and cataloguing the types
instruments found in the miniatures and the ways they are depicted,
also puts forward an hypothesis about the political and cultural history of
the Mughals which may be read from a study of the changing form of on
of the instruments. Like Leisi6's findings, her data has enabled her to lin
morphological and ergological changes in instruments and their classif
tion to social change. Identifying a distinctive rabab-type of plucked l
that appeared in Indian paintings produced during the Akbari period,
noted that the instrument had a distinctive mechanism for attaching the
pegs. The instrument was absent from court paintings during the reign o
the sultan Akbar, but appeared in miniatures commissioned at the rival court
of his son, leading Wade to speculate that it may well be a symbol of new
political independence at the time.
Ethnomusicologists investigating those culture-emerging concepts
about music and musical instruments which lie at the basis of the many
indigenous classifications of instruments to be found around the world have
noticed the propensity of music-cultures "to imbue their instrument classifi-
cation systems and descriptions with culture-specific concepts, concepts
which in turn enrich and mediate the systematic logic of their classificato-
ry schemes ... (and) may include musical practice, theory, or genre, a world
view and cosmology, gender and sexual dualism, and a plethora of other
historic and sociological information" (Moore 1992:108). This trend led to
the adoption in 1990 of a comparative organographic approach to the study
and a search for commonalities in and distinctions between classifications
across the cultures.
Shift of Focus from Universals to Inter- and

Intra-cultural Commonalities
A concurrent trend in the 1990s has been the search for commonali-
ties between classifications from different music-cultures and the music-
groups within them. My own monograph, On Concepts and Classifications
ofMusical Instruments (1990), presents a comparative organographic view
of many music-cultures based partly on my own field data and partly on the
field and historical data compiled by others. A major conclusion of the book,
as was pointed out in some of the reviews, is that systems of classifying
instruments tend to embody deep patterns of thought and experience that
can vary with place and time in a society. Thus, as one reviewer put it,
"Diverse cultures may share certain traits such as classifying instruments
by sound excitation or materials, by function or by distinguishing between
foreign and familiar instruments ... [and] classification systems . . . are al-
ways compromises" (Moore 1992:109).The crux of the book , in the view
of one organologist (Johnson 1996:27), is that "classifications are often
synopses or terse accounts of a culture's , subculture's or individual's deep-
seated ideas about music and instruments, as well as, in some cases, philo-
sophical, religious and social beliefs" (Kartomi 1990:7). In fact, "only
through a thorough knowledge of the place of each scheme in its own
particular cultural web can it be understood in its own terms ... " (Kartomi
1990: 284).
As Steven Feld wrote in his review, "the study of organology and the
classifications of musical instruments [has] in recent years occupied an
increasingly marginal position both in the anthropology of material culture

and in ethnomusicology proper. This [book] reflects a shift both in theo-
retical orientations and in ethnographic practices" (Feld 1993:367). Not only
these shifts but also "the current critical and reflexive trends toward ex-
amining how disciplines and discourses of knowledge and power are con-
structed" (ibid.) make a revival of interest in the classification and other
systematic studies of musical instruments "welcome." As he wrote, the book
reviews
the nature of instrument classification in relationship to various ideas

cepts about music emergent in different cultural moments [as well
impact of ethnoscience, folk systematics, and research on indigenous
and procedures of classification.... [It] uses a great variety of sourc
tablish the historical dominance of downward classification (tree d
based on modes of playing technique and materials morphology, int
to degrees by cosmology, gender, class. ... [It reviews] the emergenc
widely used method of Sachs and Hornbostel in this century... [and] ch
es provided by recent work on upward classification of European folk
ments, and... societies oriented toward oral transmission. (ibid.:367-8)
Though not all the facts about the world's instruments and ensembles
are yet known, so much more is realized about the world's instruments than
was even conceived of a hundred years ago, and so much more data is avail-
able to be collated and systematized by computers or other labor-efficient
means, that a relatively rigorous, comparative organographic analysis may at
last become possible. If we succeed in collecting a broad sample of the
world's orally-transmitted as well as literarily-transmitted classifications, we
shall be in a position to draw some comparative conclusions about the na-
ture, purpose, and types of classifications in various kinds of societies. At this
stage of our collective research we need constantly to search for ways of
piecing together the many extraneous studies of the world's instruments and
ensembles, to compare them on many levels, and to construct them into an
intellectual web for further inquiry. We need also systematically to examine
and constantly to re-examine the practical and theoretical issues arising in
classifications belonging to groups of musicians in different music-cultures
and historical periods. Already the data indicate that schemes based on the
mode of sound activation in different music-cultures resemble each other in
form and content much more closely than schemes based on local ideolog-
ical factors, with the latter showing a great diversity of form and content.
International communication and discussion between scholars of mu-
sical instruments and their classification is stronger in the 1990s th
previous decades. This is due in part to easier electronic communica
between individuals and also to the frequent meetings of relevant
groups in international organizations such as the International Council for

Traditional Music (ICTM) and the above-mentioned International Commit-
tee for Musical Instrument Museums and Collections (CIMCIM). This healthy
trend-which could, however, be further strengthened--has contributed
greatly to the recently accelerating development of our thinking about and
understanding of many of the parameters of musical instruments.
Theoretical Issues
In some of its theoretical aspects, scholarly discussion of the

of organology has developed from-or in relation to -the publication
monograph (Kartomi 1990). The book aroused critical discussion
al issues, such as observed shifts in theoretical orientation, the inter
tion of orality and literacy in transmitting classificatory knowl
relationship between classifications and concepts of instruments
ology of particular taxonomies, their nature in terms of practic
logical application, the complementary nature of upward and do
classificatory thinking, and the use of biological terms in classificat
ory when applied to cases of musical instruments.
Feld expressed the view that deeper discussion of alternative
tended modes of transmitting and organizing classificatory know
different cultures and historical periods would inform and expand o
ing about the intersections between orality and literacy and their co
impacts on various types of concept classification. This would in
fruitful line of further enquiry. Other topics which Feld said neede
further researched were the explication of the ideological chara
particular taxonomic representations and the nature of taxonom
vis historical projects involving the making of museum displays of c
objects (Feld 1993).
David Oldroyd's review (1992) extended the discussion in the b
the analogy between biological specimens and musical instrume
commented on the consequences of the different nature of the
ies of specimens vis-a-vis the treatment of problems in their classif
Classifications in biology and musicology are not exactly compa
cause taxa in biology are historically interrelated by evolution while
ments are fixed, static objects that cannot grow or adapt in the
While apes and human beings may be said to have some distant co
ancestor (if I may extend Oldroyd's point), it is not sensible to say t
oloncelli and bassoons have a common forebear, nor even to say
las and violins have the same ancestor or belong to the same line
though the latter was developed after the former in historical su
As we know, Darwin had to explain evolution (i.e., the product of an indi-

vidual's improvement in adaptation) before he could convince anyone of the
reality of the evolution of biological specimens. Thus the principle of natu-
ral selection and adaptation to environment explains adaptation. This does
not, however, apply to musical instruments because the concepts of evolu-
tion and lineage are not applicable to anything but animate beings, which
are able to inherit genes from their forebears and unintentionally vary them.21
It is partly for this reason that organologists need not slavishly follow
the whole gamut of classificatory terms used by Ernst Mayr (1982) and oth-
ers in the field of biology, but may use and apply terms differently accord-
ing to the special requirements of the field of instrument classification. The
historical sources show that in most cultures studied to date, people's
knowledge of classifications of instruments has been limited to only the
highest, or most abstract, level or step, which is usually the only level of
terms that everyone in a culture remembers. For example, most school
children in Western countries know the conventional division of instru-
ments at the highest level into strings, wind, brass, and percussion
Kartomi 1990:171; Dournon 1992:252), and most museologists and schol-
ars of musical instruments know the Mahillon, Hornbostel and Sachs four-
fold division of instruments into idiophones, membranophones, aero-
phones, and chordophones. Moreover, most traditional Chinese musicians
and scholars know the four or eight highest-level divisions of instruments
in the two versions of the pa yin system, without, however, knowing the
various close subdivisions of these schemes.
The Increasing Tendency Towards Studying Particular

Classes of Instruments Has Paved the Way for a Deeper
Integration of "Downward" and "Upward" Typologies
A debate arose in the 1990s about the epistemological nature of classifi-
cation in organological research. Some scholars expressed the view that all
classificatory thinking operates in an upward direction, moving from the
specific to the general, pointing out that upward classification has ancient
roots. Others were of the opinion that classificatory thinking proceeds not
only in upward but also in downward directions, pointing out that down-
ward classificatory thinking is also of ancient origins, in fact that it domi-
nates most known classifications of instruments the world over, past and
present. As they asserted, musicians and scholars in many cultures habitu-
ally apply classifications at one or a very limited number of levels of high
generality, for example, referring only to the three-category division of
strings, winds, and percussion when describing a Western orchestra.
The view presented in the On Concepts book is that classificatory think-

ing tends to move between the upward, downward, and lateral rather than
being restricted to one direction alone; and that no classification scheme,
including that of Elschek (1969b), is normally developed by uni-direction-
al thinking alone. This general idea is in fact quite ancient, being implicit
in Plato's discussion of the first principles in the Republic and his ideas
about dichotomous classifications in the Sophist (Oldroyd 1992:107). What
is new and important about the initially upward-thinking method of instru-
ment classification devised by Elschek is that it is a culmination of a grow-
ing trend among instrument classification scholars from the early twenti-
eth century to study the minutiae of certain instruments in great detail and
then to classify them at increasing levels of abstraction, rather than start-
ing at the highest level. As Elschek proposes, upward classificatory think-
ing occurs only in the first stage of application of the typological method,
followed by downward classificatory thinking, involving constant move-
ment between the two.
If we wish to study orally-transmitted as well as literary classificato

traditions, it is necessary to distinguish between four kinds of schemes.
is a taxonomy, which I have defined as a grouping of objects in va
levels of taxa by sequential application of characters of division, where t
taxa (group of characteristics) are distinguished by the culture or group
created it rather than being imposed intellectually by the observer. Anot
er is a tree, i.e. a downward classification in the form of a branch diagra
governed by one character at each step, or an arrangement of dichotomo
oppositions imposed on a body of data by application of one charact
division per step, cf. key.21 The third is a paradigm, i.e. a grouping of o
jects by application of more than one dimension and simultaneously b
on the horizontal and vertical intersection of facets. The fourth is a typ
ogy, i.e., a multidimensional or multicharacter form of arranging ob
according to the simultaneous intersection of categories; it is an upw
scheme governed by several characters per step. The first two kind
scheme are uni-dimensional, while the last two are multi-dimensional.
Scholar-imposed, or artificial, schemes normally take the form ei
of keys (tree diagrams) or typologies. Culture-emerging, or natural, sche
take the form of taxonomies or paradigms. Among the T'boli in the sout
ern Philippines, for example, it is necessary to include both solo instrum
and ensembles in the one scheme because some instruments are played on
solo and others only in ensemble. Since the T'boli apply three main dimen
sions in simultaneous intersection in their classifications, their mode of
classificatory thought is paradigmatic.
At the turn of the century, we still need to ask new questions about
trends determining change in classifications as well as disparate exceptions

to them. For instance, how do classification systems change to meet, say,
a sociological crisis? How do diasporas affect accepted schemes? And what
may we conclude about different societies which use similar classification
systems? (Moore 1992) It is to be hoped that increasing numbers of schol-
ars will investigate such comparative questions about the nature of change
in classificatory thinking and the schemes determined by it as well as the
social and musical reasons that determine change in classificatory thinking
in particular societies.
Conclusion
Advances were made in the 1990s in studying particular class

struments which yielded systematic bodies of data organized in an
direction from the specific to the general. The precise, detailed
shown to improve the accuracy of classification of the relevant ins
class when used in addition to or as amendments to the schemes
by Mahillon, Hornbostel and Sachs in the late nineteenth and early
eth centuries respectively.
Unlike in previous decades of the century, only one new classifi
scheme has appeared in the 1990s: Dournon's combination of the fou
Hornbostel and Sachs scheme with the bipartite principles of Sc
This scheme has yet to be empirically tested. New schemes of t
and 1980s such as those by Montagu and Burton (1971) and Saku
have not proven influential enough to be consistently used in muse
for other practical purposes. Scholars have also more fully realized
scheme can be perfect, indeed that any scheme must amount to a co
mise between the demands of logic and inclusivity in the real w
instruments seen in their socio-musical contexts. This has led to
tolerance of the logical inadequacies of the Hornbostel and Sach
It is probably for these reasons that scholars of the 1990s have s
point in producing more new schemes. Certainly, in part for re
lie beyond the scope of this discussion, none of these schemes have ever
begun to rival the wide usage of the Hornbostel and Sachs scheme, either
by itself or in parallel with other schemes.
A rigorous, comparative organographic analysis of classifications of
musical instruments and ensembles began to become possible in the 1990s,
due to: 1) an increased focus (from about 1970) on orally transmitted, cul-
ture-emerging concepts and classifications of instruments and ensembles;
2) a realization (from 1990) that such classifications, though apparently terse
constructs in their outlines, are frequently based on multi-level, creative
thought which is consistent with socially-influenced or structured ideas and

belief systems; 3) an increasing tendency (beginning in the 1930s) toward
the close study of types of instruments, thus paving the way for upward
classification (from the late 1960s); 4) a realization (from the 1960s) that
existing downward schemes transmitted in literary form are expandable and
that their intelligibility can be improved; 5) a shift of focus (from 1990) away
from universals to commonalities; 6) a realization (from 1990) that morpho-
logical and acoustic characters are most common in classifications used
among musicians across the world's music-cultures and sub-cultures; and
7) the fact that, from the late 1960s, the level of communication between
scholars has been substantially increasing.
Despite these changes throughout the twentieth century, the validity
of the comparative method and the conclusions drawn from its application
are still limited now, at the turn of the twenty-first century, by our igno-
rance of concepts and classifications of instruments devised in many clas-
sical, traditional, folk, and popular music-cultures and sub-cultures through-
out the world, past and present. Nor have we even begun to gather the data
and study the processes and results of change in classifications of instru-
ments and ensembles due to diasporas, culture contact, and other causes.
Only by finding and thoroughly studying each scheme in its own changing
cultural setting can we understand it in its own right, let alone rigorously
compare it with other known schemes. Only then will we be in a position
to develop a more satisfying and rigorous theory of the classification of
musical instruments.
Notes
1. I am grateful to Oskir Elschek for suggesting that I write an article on this su

to David Oldroyd for critically reading an early draft.
2. For further discussion, see Kartomi 1990:114.
3. The shift from a two- to a three-category scheme is found in the theory of so
sented by Nichomachus at the end of the first century CE in his work Enchiridion
ikes (Handbook of Harmonies). See further Kartomi 1990:19.
4. This author prefers to use the original order of names given by the two authors i
joint article-i.e. Hornbostel-Sachs -rather than the Sachs-Hornbostel order used
other authors.
5. The merits and demerits of the various schemes mentioned above and their relation-
ship to the Mahillon/Hornbostel and Sachs system are reviewed in detail in Kartomi 1990:174-
81. For a discussion of Norlind and Izikowitz, see pp. 178-9. None of these schemes, however,
found their way into common usage or served to challenge the widespread use of the Horn-
bostel and Sachs scheme.
6. Bulletin du Comitd International des Musdes et Collections d'Instrumen

sique (CIMCIM).
7. These schemes and others of the period are discussed in detail in Kartomi 1990:183-
96. Again, none of them found their way into common usage, though several of them were
taught in tertiary level organology classes.
8. Hampered by the fact that computers had not yet been developed for general use in
the 1940s, Draiger had been unable to complete his project, fulfilling only the morphological
part of the classification.
9. The study of European folk instruments such as these had been neglected before World
War II, partly because of the attitude that instrumental music was dependent on or a supple-
ment to vocal music (Stockmann 1972:11-12). Over a hundred scholars published in series
associated with a group of European folk-instrument specialist scholars from the 1960s to the
1980s. Many published in Emsheimer and Stockmann, eds., Handbuch der europaischen
Volksn usikinstrumente (1967-86) and the multi-volume series Studia Instrumentorum
Musicae Popularis (Emsheimer and Stockmann, eds., 1969-85). Their contribution is of im-
portance but is not widely known and understood, partly because their ideas and methodol-
ogies are still being developed. It is also partly because the discipline of organology itself offers
few guidelines for recognizing and assessing the significance of such contributions. One rea-
son why organological classification theory and method have lagged behind parallel develop-
ments in biology and other disciplines is that organologists have worked in isolation.
10. Dournon herself contrasts this organological approach with the holistic approach of
the theoreticians concerned to develop a schematic model of analysis. In this fundamental
aspect her overview of classification systems (some imposed, some culture-emerging) stands
in contrast to my own. For I am also drawn to speculations of a theoretical nature, and rumi-
nate on why human beings think taxonomically at all.
11. This is an idea developed in ancient systems such as that of the Bassani (Dournon
1992:251). Dournon is not the only scholar to find Schaeffner's system "elegantly logical" (see
also Kartomi 1990:174ff).
12. The category of electrophones (or electronophones) was first proposed by Francis
Galpin (Galpin 1937:30) and then by Curt Sachs (1940:447-49, 467). Galpin introduced the
fifth class of instruments as follows: electronic instruments or electric vibrators, i.e. instru-
ments in which the sound-waves are formed by oscillations set up in electric valves. This class,
sometimes called electronic, is entirely new and included here for the first time. It is only
recently that the familiar "howl" of the oscillating valve has been raised to the dignity of musical
expression. Electro-magnetism is also used" (Galpin 1937:30). Jeremy Montagu kindly drew
my attention to this reference. Jairazbhoy (1990a:72) is mistaken in attributing this innova-
tion to Mantle Hood in 1971 as is his cited reference to Deva (1978:39), who attributes it to
N. Bessaraboff in 1941.
13. Le Gonidec suggests that further sub-divisions are needed to distinguish flutes that
have more than one tube (e.g. Pan pipes), but according to the morphology of the mouth-
piece, not solely according to the presence of a number of tubes. She cites various support-
ing, and contrasting, examples. The other category of instruments to receive special
consideration in her system is flutes whose resonator is not tubular. In this case she argues
that the morphology of the flute body-i.e. whether it be tube- or globe-shaped-is not cru-
cial to the classificatory process, since the outer appearance of the instruments does not give
any indication about the volume of air nor its acoustical behaviour (Le Gonidec 1997:34).
14. For example, Myer's brass instrument classification scheme could be used in trum-
pet and other brass museums, such as at Bad Sickingen (in Germany) and Kremsmiinster (in
Austria).
15. It is also possible to use the characters qualitatively to describe the historical devel-
opment of instruments such as the trumpet and the trombone (Myers 1998).
16. For a full discussion of the terms and their implications, see Kartomi 1990:12-14.
17. Although the present article is not concerned with reviews of publications, some
critical issues arising in review essays are canvassed.
18. Robin Ryan kindly supplied most of the information in this paragraph.
19. I am indebted to Kipps Horn, Ph.D. candidate at Monash University, for the infor-
mation contained in this paragraph, part of which derives from his interview with the above-
mentioned Lambros Liavis, Director of the Museum for Greek Popular Musical Instruments
and the Center for Ethnomusicology in Athens.
20. One can adapt an instrument to its environment, e.g. by tinkering with an organ to
make it suit the acoustics of a church, but this is by mechanical, not evolutionary means (David
Oldroyd, pers. com. 1999).
21. Most modern biologists have rejected keys. "Identification by means of a key may
result in an unsatisfactory, or even ridiculous answer to a classificatory problem because spec-
imens in each division of a key need not have anything in common except the chosen char-
acter (e.g. if a piano is classed with a shawm because they share the character of being painted
black)" (Kartomi 1990:18). Thus keys may actually obscure real relationships. However, as
Montagu explains (pers. com.), the technical classificatory term key and the method implied
by it can be useful. Classification by keys denotes a process of elimination (i.e. if one's an-
swer to a question involving two alternative answers is "yes," go to "x," if "no," go to "y").
As he explains, the key method is useful for curators in museums and narrowly specialized
single instrument specialists, such as violin specialists, in auction houses, who know little
about instruments as a whole. The method helps such people when they need, for exam-
ple, to distinguish an oboe from a clarinet (e.g. it might be asked: is it "conical"? If the an-
swer is "yes," go to "oboe," but if the answer is "no, except for the last three inches," then
go to "clarinet").
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The Classification of Musical Instruments: Changing Trends in Research from the Late

Nineteenth Century, with Special Reference to the 1990s

The Classification of Musical

MARGARET KARTOMI / Monash University

Introduction: Change Over the Past Hundred Years

? 2001 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

four categories and subdivides them in a fairly systematic fashion at lower

ry served as a basis for cross-cultural comparisons and for the construction,

Collectively they covered many music-cultures, past and present, usually

Interest in problems of instrument classification-as opposed to musi-

logically-based hierarchy. He was interested in species rather than genera,

While Elschek argued that a clear distinction needs to be made between

put forward by Genevieve Dournon (Dournon 1992). Growing out of her

form standard for establishing lower order categories (a problem also id

along with the widespread destruction of natural habitats, creatures and

The Hornbostel and Sachs System as a Flexible Nucleus for

electrophones are considered to be an essential part of the musical creative

ingly fast rhythms produced by arm and hand chest-beating-as in Acehnese

(Flora 1998). In another study, Flora's detailed organological descrip

catalogue of his own collection of reed instruments, he proposes a ne

terion of the type of reed (whether single, double or free), because

In his catalogue, Montagu divides reed pipes, which Hornbostel and

Historical Comparisons of Classificatory Ideas

schemes of many music-cultures-ancient and modern-the world over,

An Increased Focus on Local/Indigenous Concepts

Until about 1990, scholarly awareness of indigenous and other cult

of the classification, symbols, and meaning of the whole gamut of Wai~ipi

and Sachs system in a display of Chinese instruments (verbal com., Marga-

a fifth category added for electric instruments-for practical purposes and

One geographical area of instrument classification studies about whic

The relationship between musical instruments and their social context

Shift of Focus from Universals to Inter- and

increasingly marginal position both in the anthropology of material culture

the nature of instrument classification in relationship to various ideas

groups in international organizations such as the International Council for

In some of its theoretical aspects, scholarly discussion of the

As we know, Darwin had to explain evolution (i.e., the product of an indi-

The Increasing Tendency Towards Studying Particular

The view presented in the On Concepts book is that classificatory think-

If we wish to study orally-transmitted as well as literary classificato

trends determining change in classifications as well as disparate exceptions

Advances were made in the 1990s in studying particular class

thought which is consistent with socially-influenced or structured ideas and

1. I am grateful to Oskir Elschek for suggesting that I write an article on this su

6. Bulletin du Comitd International des Musdes et Collections d'Instrumen

- . 1937. A Textbook of European Musical Instruments. London: Williams and Norga

Kunst, Jaap. 1959. Ethnomusicology. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Mahillon, Victor-Charles. 1893 [1880]. Catalog descriptif et analytique du Muse'e instrum

Historische und Systematische Musikwissenschaft, Oskdr Elschek zum 65. Geburtstag:

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