april2018

SEXY GLAM

MAGAZINE - APRIL 2018

The Sachs-Hornbostel system (or H-S System) is a

comprehensive, global method of classifying acoustic

musical instruments. It was developed in 1914 by two

European musicologists, despite their own fears that

such a systematic system was nearly impossible.

Curt Sachs (1881–1959) was a German musicolo-

gist known for his extensive study and expertise on

the history of musical instruments. Sachs worked

alongside Erich Moritz von Hornbostel (1877–1935),

an Austrian musicologist and expert on the history of

non-European music.

Their collaboration led to a conceptual framework

based on how musical instruments produce sound:

the location of the created vibration.

A Sound Classification

Musical instruments can be classified by the Western

orchestral system into brass, percussion, strings, and

woodwinds; but the S-H system allows non-western

instruments to be classified as well. Over 100 years

after its development, the H-S system is still in use in

most museums and in large inventory projects. The

method’s limitations were recognized by Sachs and

Hornbostel: there are many instruments that have

multiple vibration sources at different times during a

performance, making them difficult to classify.

The H-S system divides all musical instruments into

five categories: idiophones, membranophones, chor-

dophones, aerophones, and electrophones.

Idiophones

Idiophones are musical instruments in which a vibrat-

ing solid material is used to produce sound.

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman performs Brahms’s First Piano Concerto with conductor Sir Simon Rattle leading the London Sympho-

ny Orchestra (LSO) at Barbican Centre on July 2, 2015 in London, United Kingdom. Photo by Amy T. Zielinski.