From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making music. In principle, anything that produces sound
can serve as a musical instrument. The term "musical instrument",
however, is generally reserved for items that have a specific musical
purpose such as a piano. The academic study of musical instruments is
called organology.
Archeology and anthropology
Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of
determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across
cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their
complexity is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments
have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task.[1]
It is likewise misleading to arrange the development of musical
instruments by workmanship since all cultures advance at different
levels and have access to different materials. For example,
anthropologists attempting to compare musical instruments made by two
cultures that existed at the same time but who differed in
organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which
instruments are more "primitive".[2]
Ordering instruments by geography is also partially unreliable, as one
cannot determine when and how cultures contacted one another and shared
knowledge. German musicologist Curt Sachs, one of the most prominent musicologists in modern times,[3] proposed that a geographical chronology is preferable, however, due to its limited subjectivity.[4]
Archaeological evidence of musical instruments was discovered in excavations at the Royal Cemetery in the Sumerian city of Ur. These instruments include nine lyres, two harps, a silver double flute, sistra and cymbals. These excavations, carried out by Leonard Woolley
in the 1920s, uncovered non-degradable fragments of instruments and the
voids left by the degraded segments which, together, have been used to
reconstruct them.[5] The graves to which these instruments were related have been carbon dated to between 2600 and 2500 BCE, providing evidence that these instruments were being used in Sumeria by this time.[6]
A cuneiform tablet from Nippur in Mesopotamia dated to 2000 BCE indicates the names of strings on the lyre and represents the earliest known example of music notation.[7]
History
Until the 19th century CE, written music histories began with
mythological accounts of how musical instruments were invented. Such
accounts included Jubal, descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ", Pan, inventor of the panpipes, and Mercury, who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into the first lyre.
Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropologically
proven information. Scholars agree that there was no definitive
"invention" of the musical instrument since the definition of the term
"musical instrument" is completely subjective to both the scholar and
the would-be inventor. For example, a Homo habilis slapping his body could be the makings of a musical instrument regardless of the being's intent.[8]
Two
Aztec slit drums, called
teponaztli. The characteristic "
H" slits can be seen on the top of the drum in the foreground.
Among the first devices external to the human body considered to be instruments are rattles, stampers, and various drums. These earliest instruments evolved due to the human motor impulse to add sound to emotional movements such as dancing.[9]
Eventually, some cultures assigned ritual functions to their musical
instruments. Those cultures developed more complex percussion
instruments and other instruments such as ribbon reeds, flutes, and
trumpets. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from
those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for
their basic operation and function rather than any resemblance to
modern instruments.[10] Among early cultures for whom drums developed ritual, even sacred importance are the Chukchi people of the Russian Far East, the indigenous people of Melanesia, and many cultures of East Africa. One East African tribe, the Wahinda, even believed that seeing a drum would be fatal to any person other than the sultan.[11]
The bagpipe was an old North African instrument used by the destitute
Berbers to collect charity. Nero, the Roman Emperor, imported it to
Europe[12].
Humans eventually developed the concept of using musical instruments for producing a melody. Until this time in the evolutions of musical instruments, melody was common only in singing. Similar to the process of reduplication
in language, instrument players first developed repetition and then
arrangement. An early form of melody was produced by pounding two
stamping tubes of slightly different sizes—one tube would produce a
"clear" sound and the other would answer with a "darker" sound. Such
instrument pairs also included bullroarers, slit drums,
shell trumpets, and skin drums. Cultures who used these instrument
pairs associated genders with them; the "father" was the bigger or more
energetic instrument, while the "mother" was the smaller or duller
instrument. Musical instruments existed in this form for thousands of
years before patterns of three or more tones would evolve in the form
of the earliest xylophone.[13] Xylophones originated in the mainland and archipelago of Southeast Asia, eventually spreading to Africa, the Americas, and Europe.[14]
Along with xylophones, which ranged from simple sets of three "leg
bars" to carefully-tuned sets of parallel bars, various cultures
developed instruments such as the ground harp, ground zither, musical bow, and jaw harp.[15]
Images of musical instruments begin to appear in Mesopotamian artifacts in 2800 BCE or earlier. Beginning around 2000 BCE, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures began delineating two distinct classes of musical instruments due to division of labor
and the evolving class system. Popular instruments, simple and playable
by anyone, evolved differently from professional instruments whose
development focused on effectiveness and skill.[16] Despite this development, very few musical instruments have been recovered in Mesopotamia. Scholars must rely on artifacts and cuneiform texts written in Sumerian or Akkadian
to reconstruct the early history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia.
Even the process of assigning names to these instruments is challenging
since there is no clear distinction among various instruments and the
words used to describe them.[17] Although Sumerian and Babylonian artists mainly depicted ceremonial instruments, historians have been able to distinguish six idiophones used in early Mesopotamia: concussion clubs, clappers, sistra, bells, cymbals, and rattles.[18] The sistra are of particular interest because similar designs have been found in far-reaching places such as Tbilisi, Georgia and among the Native American Yaqui tribe.[19]
The people of Mesopotamia preferred stringed instruments to any other,
as evidenced by their proliferation in Mesopotamian figurines, plaques,
and seals. Innumerable varieties of harps are depicted, as well as
lyres and lutes, the forerunner of modern stringed instruments such as
the violin.[20]
Musical instruments used by the Egyptian culture before 2700 BCE
bore striking similarity to those of Mesopotamia, leading historians to
conclude that the civilizations must have been in contact with one
another. Sachs notes that Egypt did not possess any instruments that
the Sumerian culture did not also possess.[21]
However, by 2700 BCE the cultural contacts seem to have dissipated; the
lyre, a prominent ceremonial instrument in Sumer, did not appear in
Egypt for another 800 years.[21]
Clappers and concussion sticks appear on Egyptian vases as early as
3000 BCE. The civilization also made use of sistra, vertical flutes,
double clarinets, arched and angular harps, and various drums.[22]
Little history is available in the period between 2700 BCE and 1500
BCE, as Egypt (and indeed, Babylon) entered a long violent period of
war and destruction. This period saw the Kassites destroy the Babylonian empire in Mesopotamia and the Hyksos destroy the Middle Kingdom of Egypt.
When the Pharaohs of Egypt conquered Southwest Asia in around 1500 BCE,
the cultural ties to Mesopotamia were renewed and Egypt's musical
instruments also reflected heavy influence from Asiatic cultures.[21] Under their new cultural influences, the people of the New Kingdom began using oboes, trumpets, lyres, lutes, castanets, and cymbals.[23]
In contrast with Mesopotamia and Egypt, professional musicians did not exist in Israel
between 2000 and 1000 BCE. While the history of musical instruments in
Mesopotamia and Egypt relies on artistic representations, the culutre
in Israel produced few such representations. Scholars must therefore
rely on information gleaned from the Bible and the Talmud.[24] The Hebrew texts mention two prominent instruments associated with Jubal, ugabs and kinnors. These may be translated as pan pipes and lyres, respectively.[25] Other instruments of the period included tofs, or frame drums, small bells or jingles called pa'amon, shofars, and the trumpet-like hasosra.[26]
The introduction of a monarchy in Israel during the 11th century BCE
produced the first professional musicians and with them a drastic
increase in the number and variety of musical instruments.[27]
However, identifying and classifying the instruments remains a
challenge due to the lack of artistic interpretations. For example,
stringed instruments of uncertain design called nevals and asors
existed, but neither archaeology nor etymology can clearly define them.[28] In her book A Survey of Musical Instruments,
American musicologist Sibyl Marcuse proposes that the nevel must be
similar to vertical harp due to its relation to "nabla", the Phoenician
term for "harp".[29]
In Greece, Rome, and Etruria,
the use and development of musical instruments stood in stark contrast
to those cultures' achievements in architecture and sculpture. The
instruments of the time were simple and virtually all of them were
imported from other cultures.[30] Lyres were the principal instrument, as musicians used them to honor the gods.[31] Other instruments in common use in the region included vertical harps derived from those of the Orient, lutes of Egyptian design, various pipes and organs, and clappers, which were played primarily by women.[32]
Types
All musical instruments fall under the classification of one of four types of instrument, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and strings.
Brass
A
trumpet, perhaps the most famous brass instrument.
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as the player blows into a tubular resonator.[33] There are many brass instruments, including the trombone, trumpet, tuba, baritone, euphonium, french horn, flugelhorn, sousaphone, mellophone, saxhorn, cornet, sackbut, bazooka, bugle, cornett, serpent, ophicleide and the keyed trumpet.[33]
Woodwinds
A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument which produces sound
when the player blows air against an edge of, or opening in, the
instrument, causing the air to vibrate within a resonator. Most
commonly, the player blows against a thin piece of wood called a reed.
Woodwind instruments include the Bansuri, dizi, flute, fife, Piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, bass clarinet, panpipes, and the double reed oboe and english horn.[34]
Strings
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by
means of vibrating strings. Common string instruments include the piano, violin, viola, cello, bass, mandolin, guitar, sitar, harp, and the banjo.[35]
Percussion
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by
being hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other
action which sets the object into vibration. Some percussion
instruments are the xylophone, piano, triangle, snare and bass drums, cymbals, and anything that can be hit, for example, a desk could be a percussion instrument.[36]
Classification
-
There are many different methods of classifying musical instruments.
All methods examine some combination of the physical properties of the
instrument, how music is performed on the instrument, the range of the instrument, and the instrument's place in an orchestra
or other ensemble. Some methods arise as a result of disagreements
between experts on how instruments should be classified. While a
complete survey of the systems of classifications is beyond the scope
of this article, a summary of major systems follows.
Ancient systems
An ancient system, dating from at least the 1st century BC,
divides instruments into four main classification groups: instruments
where the sound is produced by vibrating strings; instruments where the
sound is produced by vibrating columns of air; percussion instruments
made of wood or metal; and percussion instruments with skin heads, or drums. Victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. He was the curator of the musical instrument collection of the conservatoire in Brussels, and for the 1888 catalogue of the collection divided instruments into four groups: string instruments, wind instruments, percussion instruments, and drums.
Sachs-Hornbostel
Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs later took up the ancient scheme and published an extensive new scheme for classification in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is widely used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system.
The original Sachs-Hornbostel system classified instruments into four main groups:
- Chordophones, such as the piano or cello,
produce sound by vibrating strings; they are sorted into zithers,
keyboard chordophones, lyres, harps, lutes, and bowed chordophones.[37]
- Aerophones, such as the pip
Classical
from 
