1. ST. PAUL UNIVERSITY QUEZON CITY
00 Aurora Blvd., cor. Gilmore Ave., Quezon City
1 MUSIC II
HORNBOSTLE – SACH’S
CLASSIFICATION OF INSTRUMENTS
Aerophones refers to instruments that uses air as its producing agent.
The instruments are usually blown by the player and there are holes that are
covered with a specific pattern in order to produce various pitches. Examples
of aerophones are the woodwind and the brass instruments of the orchestra,
like the flute, oboe, trumpet, French horn and the likes.
Chordophones refers to instruments that have strings. These strings are
either bowed, plucked or strummed in order to produce sound. Frets are also
important to chordophones, they act as tension that enables the string to have
different pitches. A chordophone instrument consists of the frets, the body
(which act as a resonator) and the strings. A chordophone may either be a
fiddle (uses a bow) or a zither (strings are commonly plucked with a plectrum).
Examples of chordophones are the violin, viola. Guitar, cello and the likes.
Idiophones are instruments that are percussive in nature. However, it is a
special type of percussion. Unlike the drums which are struck upon a skin,
idiophone instruments are directly struck, shaken or hit on the body of the
instrument. This can be best explained using the cymbals or xylophone as
examples. The body of the instrument may be struck with another sound agent
or it may be sounded using the player’s bare hands.

2. Membranophones are instruments that uses animal skin or synthetic skin to
cover the instrument’s body. The skin act as producing agent where the
instrument is struck with either a piece of stick or with the player’s bare hands.
The body of the instrument act as resonator and it may come in various shapes
like, barrel-shaped drums, circular drums, goblet-shaped drums. Fan drums,
hour glass-shaped drums, double headed drums. Examples of
membranophones are congo drums, snare drums, timpani and the likes.