How to Compare Musical Instrument Sounds

Percussion instruments

The world's music is enriched by an array of musical instruments, each having distinctive characteristics such as size, shape, material, performance technique, and timbre or tone color. To compare musical instruments, we may divide them into one of five categories.

Winds: Aerophones

End-blown flute

Familiar examples of aerophones include flute, trumpet, bagpipe, pipe organ and clarinet. Constructed from materials such as metal, wood, reeds or even plastic, all share common characteristics as "wind instruments." To produce sound, a performer blows across a hole set in a hollow tube, as with a flute, or blows into a special mouthpiece, as with a trumpet or clarinet. In some instruments, the air is blown by a mechanical device operated by the performer, as with an accordion or pipe organ.

Percussion: Ideophones

Crashing cymbals

This sub-class of percussion instruments includes bells, rattles, gongs, marimbas, cymbals, steel drums and many more. A performer produces sound by striking, shaking or scraping. The quality of sound varies according to the material and design of the instrument, as well as the performance technique. Thus, a xylophone, with its tuned metal or wooden bars vibrating over a sound resonator, has a well-defined sound suitable for melody, whereas cymbals produce a single crashing sound.

Percussion: Membranophones

Playing drums with a mallet

The main distinguishing feature of the other sub-class of percussion instruments is the thin membrane or skin stretched over a resonating body classified by shape. In general we refer to these as "drums." Some are cylindrical, conical or barrel-shaped, and others have shapes like a goblet or are stretched over a simple, usually circular, frame. Drums are played or struck with a mallet, stick or brushes or played with the hands.

Strings: Chordophones

Cello played by drawing a bow across the strings

Stringed instruments sound when strings are made to vibrate, generally by plucking, as with guitars, lutes and banjos, or by drawing a bow across the strings, as with violins and cellos. Once set in motion, the tones are amplified by a sound box, usually constructed of wood, over which the strings are stretched and tuned to specific pitches.

Mechanical and Electric Instruments

Electric guitar is an electro-mechanical instrument

Who would not immediately recognize an electric guitar? It is one of many instruments where the sound is produced by mechanical or electrical means. Electric guitars, synthesizers, music boxes, carillons, electric organs and chimes fall within this category. Many of these resemble their acoustic or "unplugged" counterparts and are even played using similar techniques. The important distinguishing feature is the mechanical or electronic origin of the actual sounds produced.

Musicians' Palette

Musical performers have at their disposal a rich palette of sounds. Two musicologists, Erich Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, wrote extensively about the history of musical instruments and developed a widely known system of classification. Travel the world through recordings of the world's music and you will enjoy a broad spectrum of melody, harmony, rhythm and styles, made even more colorful by the variety of traditional and modern musical instruments. As brushes, colors, paint and canvas are to the artist, so musical instruments are the medium through which musicians create great works of musical art.

References

• Virtual Museum: Musical Instrument Classification Systems
• Virginia Tech: Hornbostel-Sachs
• Dallas Symphony Orchestra Kids: Listen to Instruments