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Bells and steel drums are percussion idiophones; Steel drums are hit with sticks held by the player; a bell is hit by the clapper inside the bell.

    Idiophone categories

  • Percussion idiophones are hit with sticks, beaters, or clappers (bells, steel drums).
  • Shaken idiophones are shaken (maracas, eggs, jingle bells).
  • Concussion idiophones are played by clashing two of them together (castanets, claves, spoons).
  • Friction idiophones are made to vibrate by rubbing them (as when you make a wine glass ring by rubbing its rim).
  • Scraped idiophones are played by scraping a stick across a set of notches or corrugations on the instrument (guiro, washboard).
  • Stamping idiophones are stamped on the ground, floor, or hard surface. (Tap shoes are in this category.)
  • If the main sound is coming from the surface that is being stamped on, it is a stamped idiophone.
  • Plucked idiophones have a thin tongue of metal or bamboo that vibrates when plucked (jew's harp, mbira or thumb piano).

Electrophones

An instrument that is not amplified electrically is an acoustic instrument. There are instruments (such as the electric-acoustic guitar, vibraphone, and electric saxophone) that keep their acoustic resonators but are also amplified and altered electronically. Actually any instrument sound that has been through a microphone and amplifier, or even been saved as a recording, belongs in this category. These instruments are probably best categorized as they would be before being amplified.

There are also a large number of instruments that could be categorized as either mechanical or electrical. Mechanical instruments are played by some mechanical mechanism instead of by a person. (Music boxes, player pianos, and carillons are in this category.) Electric instruments (electric guitar, electric bass) rely on electronics instead of a resonator to amplify and alter the sound. These hybrid instruments may be categorized as mechanical or electric instruments, or they may be classified according to how the sound is produced before it is amplified (electric guitar is still a plucked lute chordophone, for example, or perhaps simply an electric chordophone) or after the mechanism causes it to play (carillons are percussion idiophones - bells).

But there are some instruments that are true electrophones ; their sound is both produced and amplified by electronic circuits. (This group includes the electric organ, synthesizer, and theremin.)

The sound of an electric guitar begins with a string, but is modified and amplified electronically. Is it a chordophone, an electrophone, or both?

Activities

Classify the instruments of the orchestra (see Orchestral Instruments ), or the instruments in a group you are familiar with, according to Hornbostel and Sach's system.

    In an orchestra

  • All the strings are bowed lutes (except for the harp - a harp - and the piano - a struck zither).
  • Flutes and piccolos are blow hole aerophones.
  • Clarinets are single reed aerophones.
  • Oboes and bassoons are double reed aerophones.
  • All the brass are cup mouthpiece aerophones.
  • Tympani are vessel membranophones.
  • The other drums are cylindrical tubular membranophones.
  • Melody percussion are percussion idiophones.
  • Cymbals and gongs are concussion idiophones.
  • Tamborines are frame drum idiophones.
  • Triangles and some bells are percussion idiophones.
  • Maracas, eggs, and some bells are shaken idiophones.

Acknowledgements

Except for "Basic Chordophone Types", all illustrations are by Margaret Jones. When copying this material under the Creative Commons license, please make appropriate attribution. Thank you.

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Source:  OpenStax, A parent's guide to band. OpenStax CNX. Jun 25, 2007 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10428/1.1
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