CHORNBOSTEL – SACHS CLASSIFICATION OF A PIANO

(314.122-4-8, simple chordophone instrument)

Sachs-Hornbostel system is widely used classification of musical instruments developed by Erich Moritz
von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs. Their work was developing in Berlin and finally published in Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie in year 1914.

Curt Sachs was born in 1881 in Berlin where he finished studies in field of art history. Being appointed
director of the Staatliche Instrumentensaamlung, he reorganized and restored much of the collection,
what probably inspired him for making classification system. Erich Moritz was born in Vienna in 1887. He
is known not only as one of the pioneers in ethnomusicology and his researches of music in Navaho Indian
and African tribes, but also as a big contributor to musical psychology and psychoacoustics. Collaborating
with Carl Stumpf, E. M. Hornbostel moved to Berlin, where soon he became the first director of the
Phonographic Institute, where he also started a cooperation with Mr Sachs. Having Jewish origins, both of
the authors had problems with Nazi-establishment. After 1933, C. Sachs moved to Paris and then to USA,
where he died in 1959, and Hornbostel went to Switzerland, later to USA, and finally he moved to
Cambridge, where he died in 1935.

Before Sachs-Chornbostel system, there was a musical instrument classification developed in 19th century
by Victor-Charles Mahillon. This system was suitable only for European classical music instruments, and
contained four categories, according to the nature of the sound-producing material: string, membrane, air
column and body of an instrument. This was the base for Sachs and Hornbostel, who organized their
system according to Dewey Decimal Classification for libraries. Their system has five major categories with
several levels under, which ends up with almost 300 basic categories.

The first five major categories are:

1. Idiophones, which produce sound by vibrations of the body of the instrument (most percussion
instruments)
2. Membranophones, which produce sound with vibration of a stretched membrane
3. Chordophones which produce sound by vibrating of one or more strings
4. Aerophones, which produce sound with an air column
5. Electrophones, which sound is produces by electrical means

Being a keyboard instrument with strings, a piano belongs to chordophones (3). This category contains
three sub groups – simple chordophones or zithers (31), composite chordophones (32), unclassified
chordophones (33).

Simple chordophones are instruments which are only carrying the strings. They may (but not necessary)
have a resonator box, but being left without one, they could still be playable, with possible difference in
sound. They are further divided into six different sub categories according to the string bearer – bar or
stich zithers (311), tube zithers (312), raft zithers (313), board zithers (314), trough zithers (315), and frame
zithers (316). As the piano uses a string bearer shaped like a board, piano belongs to the 314 group.

However, this group also contains several subcategories: true board zithers, which have strings parallel to
the string bearer (314.1), true board zithers without resonator (314.11) and with (314. 12). True board
zithres with resonators are further divided on a groups with resonator bowl (314.121) and with resonator
box (314.122).

This instruments (314.122) are further classified based on the way of vibration producing – how strings
are caused to vibrate: with hammers (314.122-4), bare hands and fingers (314.122-5), plectrum (314.122-
6), bowing (314.122-7), keyboard (314.122-8)

As the piano is an instrument which contains a lots of strings, and can produce sound also without
resonator box, contains board as a bearer of the strings which is parallel to strings, and one resonator box
as well, and the vibrations of the strings are produced with hammers controlled with the keyboard, it is
classified as 314.122-4-8.

Sources:

Despić Dejan, Muzički instrumenti, Faculty of music Art, Belgrade, 1979 (in Serbian)

www.dictionary.onmusic.org

http://en.audiolexic.org/wiki/List_of_musical_instruments_by_Hornbostel-Sachs_number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_instrument_classification

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbostel%E2%80%93Sachs

http://www.mimo-international.com/documents/Hornbostel%20Sachs.pdf