“Unlike the Hornbostel and Sachs classification, Schaeffner’s scheme has not been translated into English and has had little impact outside France. Its comparative novelty or, in other words, its lack of continuity with past classifications, the greater prestige of Hornbostel and Sachs as scholars, and the greater exposure of Hornbostel and Sachs’s classification mediated against the widespread acceptance of Schaeffner’s scheme, despite its elegantly logical quality.” (1990:176)

In an upcoming study, which shall appear in the Revue musicale (Paris,) we hope to elaborate in detail on the motifs which led us to abandon the classification devised by Victor Mahillon (1880) and taken up by E. M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs (1914). Apart from the well-established but imperfect distinction between string, wind, and percussion instruments, this classification has remained the only one adopted by ethnologists. The classification by Mahillon and those of his successors had the advantage of appreciating the existence of musical instruments which, while not string or wind instruments, could not necessarily be filed under percussion instruments. However, even though the distinction between membranophones and autophones (or idiophones) marked real progress in non-European organology, it did not appear to us that a classification based more or less on difference of the modes of vibration of the musical instruments could be considered as meeting the strictest methods of ethnology and prehistory. We believe that the grouping should be based on elements that are immediately recognizable and essentially undisputable. Further, it should not be based on any evidence that history may not have preserved or that, being contradictory or too complex, does not offer any distinctive value. Now, what could be easier than to determine the actual material of the body which is primarily set in vibration independent of the procedure or procedures employed to make it vibrate as well as the devices attached, for instance, to intensify the sound? And does not the actual quality of the timbre specific for each musical instrument or family of instruments stem from the material of the vibrating body (stone, wood, bone, metal, air, etc.)? Hence, does a classification, based on the selection of that material and that timbre, not better distinguish which sensory nuances reflect the diversity of musical instruments? If a resonator or mute seems to be capable of not only augmenting or diminishing the intensity of the sound of the instrument but rather of modifying its essential timbre, it is all the more necessary to acknowledge what is immanent in and emitted by the body which is primarily touched. Accordingly, the first term of a classification should be determined thereupon. Finally, the geographic distribution of musical instruments, based on the material of their vibrating bodies, would underscore the relation between these instruments and the other products of a certain culture area. Thus, metallophones appear where metal working is practiced; the rattling devices made of shells or fruit skin are linked to the coast or the land...

In the announced study we are going to elaborate on each of these issues and try to justify comprehensively the terms of our classification. Here, we present this classification for immediate criticism and suggestions on behalf of the readers of the Bulletin in the form of the following table without further commentary.^[1]

I. – Musical instruments with solid vibrating body

a) Vibration of a solid body, not susceptible to tension, and with invariable or indeterminable intonation (prototype: the human body)

stone			struck directly (Aufschlag, striking)			stone chime (lithophone)
			struck against each other (two vibrating materials, Gegenschlag, clapping)
shell			struck (e.g., by a stone beater) or struck against each other			necklace, bracelet, belt or anklet of shells; cymbals of bivalve shells
bone			struck directly
			struck by shaking (Schütteln, shaking)			jaw of ruminant, carapace of a turtle filled with seeds
			scraped (scraped or rattled)			omičikawastli (Mexico)
wood			struck directly			stomped, pushed or beaten plank; wooden drum [woodblock, slit drum], Mexican teponastli [teponaztli] with two tones; set of slabs (xylophone, balafon or marimba, Javanese gambang without resonator, with box resonator or with individual resonators for each slabs)
			struck against each other			two beaters arbitrarily or in time; Burmese valetkiot; castanets, wooden cymbals, clapper; necklace, bracelet, belt or anklet of fruit skin
			struck by shaking			dry fruit with seeds; bamboo tube, wooden or basket rattle with seeds or pebbles; Javanese angkloun
			grated (grated) or scraped (scraped, rattled)			toothed stick; toothed wheel (ratchet); Portuguese reque-reque; Antillian guiro; instrument with piston[*]
			plucked (gerissen, struck or pulled with the fingers)			zanza with rattan keys; Jew’s harp
clay			struck directly			jalatharangmi (China)
			struck by shaking			clay jingle; vessel containing seeds or pebbles
			scraped
			rubbed with a bow (gestrichen, rubbed)
metal			struck directly			triangle; tuning fork; gong; modern tam-tam; bell without clapper; set of plaques (metallophone with box resonator or multiple resonators; celesta)
			struck against each other			cymbals; necklace, bracelet, belt or ankle bells with metal pellets or jingles; rings, metal castanets
			struck by shaking			metal rattle; sistrum; jingle; bell
			plucked			zanza; music box; metal Jew’s harp
			rubbed			tuning fork, “iron violin” [nail violin] (Nagelgeige)
glass			struck
			rubbed			crystallophone [glass harmonica] (Glasharmonika)

b) Vibration of a solid body, under tension, with variable intonation

bark spread and tensioned by wooden bridges
	struck	dulcimer [“cithare-tambour”] (krumba on the isle of Nias)
	plucked	valiha (natural cylindrical zither); Guinean musical bow with bark split in several strings
membrane 1. Fixed on a frame (contracted, glued, tied, pegged, nailed; on skullcap, wooden cylinder, clay, metal cylinder)
	struck directly	tambourine, drum
	struck by shaking	pellets enclosed between two membranes
	struck by air blast	mirliton, phonograph
	rubbed by a stick piercing the membrane (or set in vibration by pulling the strings attached to the membrane)
2. Tensioned on a frame by laces (on wooden cylinder or metal hemisphere).
	struck directly	drum, kettledrum
string (of vegetal fibre, animal hair, gut or metal wire); struck, plucked, rubbed 1. Tensioned by hand, by a neck, a frame or a sound board
	open string	Hindu monochord; musical bow, bow lute [pluriarc] (with several necks); Chinese harp; concave zither of German East Africa; Ethiopian kissar; kasso of Senegambia
	string tensioned over bridges	monochord; Japanese takigoto
2. Tensioned over a neck, a frame or a sound board
	by tuning pegs, without bridges	cymbalum, unfretted clavichord, piano; harpsichord, harp, lyre, zither
	by tuning pegs and over bridges or with fingerboard on the neck	trumpet marine, monochord, guitar, lute, fretted clavichord; violin, Chinese khin, hurdy-gurdy

II. Musical instruments with vibrating air

a) Vibration of ambient air

by lash or direct friction of the air		whip; buzzer, bullroarer, humming top, ventilator, siren
by reed, with or without protective tube		tuning pipe and mouth organ; harmonica; accordion; harmonium

b) Vibration of an air column (tube of reed, bamboo, bone, stone, metal, glass, etc.)

tube without reed						whistle; ocarina; flute; flageolet; pan flute; set of organ flue pipes; barrel organ
tube and natural reeds (vibrating lips)						natural horn, conch; horn; trumpet; trombone
tube and reed:
			double reed			aulos, tibia; crumhorn, oboe, English horn; bassoon
			single reed			clarinet; saxophone; bagpipe

Diverging instruments or instruments with complex vibration (exceptions from our classification)

1. Variations:
tensioned metal blade	saw rubbed with a bow or struck with a hammer
non-tensioned membrane	skin struck directly (piece of leather between the thighs, leather roll stuffed with rice husks {China}) or shaken (leather pouch filled with gravel)
2. Complex sonority:
accompaniment by other timbres	tambourine with struck membrane and shaken metal disks; Oceanian drum with struck membrane and set of shaken fruit skins, etc.
the striking object itself emitting an own sonority	drum struck with metal brush; Antillian and Central or South American maraca
3. Two vibrating materials	Negro or American drum with both membrane and resonator being struck; Arab bendir, etc.
4. Double instrument	claviorganum [épinette organisée]

André Schaeffner
Commissioner for the department of organology at the
Trocadéro Museum of Ethnography



Notes

[1] Bibliography: V. Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif et analytique du musée instrumental du Conservatoire royal de musique de Bruxelles (Gand, 1880; 2nd ed. 1893); E. M. von Hornbostel and C. Sachs, Systematik der Musikinstrumente (in Zschr. f. Ethnologie, 1914, vol.4/5); Dr. G. Montandon, La génealogie des instruments de musique et les cycles de civilisation (in Archives suisses d’anthropologie générale, III-1, 1919 XX special edition); W. Kaudern, Musical Instruments in Celebes (Gœteborg, 1927).