List of musical instruments by Hornbostel-Sachs number

The following lists contain musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

s, categorized

Musical instrument classification

At various times, and in various cultures, various schemes of musical instrument classification have been used.The most commonly used system in use in the west today divides instruments into string instruments, wind instruments and percussion instruments...

according to the Hornbostel-Sachs

Hornbostel-Sachs

Hornbostel–Sachs is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. An English translation was published in the Galpin Society Journal in 1961...

system by how they make sound

Sound

Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

Electrophones

Electrophone

The electrophone category was added to the Hornbostel-Sachs musical instrument classification system by Sachs in 1940, to describe instruments involving electricity...

s are instruments in which sound is generated by electrical means. While it is not officially in any published form of the Hornbostel-Sachs system, and hence, lacking proper numerical subdivisions, it is often considered a fifth main category.

Denis d'or
Denis d'or
The Denis d'or is, in the broadest sense, the first electric musical instrument in history.It was invented and constructed by the Czech theologian Václav Prokop Diviš — his surname is pronounced "Deevish" and often spelled "Divisch" — at his parish in the Moravian town Přímětice near...
Drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
Hammond organ
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
Keyboard bass
Keyboard bass
The keyboard bass is the use of a low-pitched keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the bass guitar or double bass in popular music.-1960s:The earliest keyboard bass instrument was the 1960 Fender Rhodes piano bass, pictured above...
Kraakdoos
Kraakdoos
The Kraakdoos is a custom made battery-powered noise-making electronic device.It is a small box with six metal contacts on top, which when pressed by fingers will generate all manner of unusual sounds and tones...

(or Cracklebox)
MalletKAT
Mellotron
Mellotron
The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
Octapad
Ondes Martenot
Ondes Martenot
The ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...
Rhodes piano
Rhodes piano
The Rhodes piano is an electro-mechanical piano, invented by Harold Rhodes during the fifties and later manufactured in a number of models, first in collaboration with Fender and after 1965 by CBS....
Synclavier
Synclavier
The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
Synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
Tannerin (a.k.a. Electro-Theremin
Electro-Theremin
The Electro-Theremin, often called the Tannerin, is an electronic musical instrument developed by trombonist Paul Tanner and amateur inventor Bob Whitsell in the late 1950s to produce a sound to mimic that of the theremin. The instrument features a tone and portamento similar to that of the...

)
Telharmonium
Telharmonium
The Telharmonium was an early electronic musical instrument, developed by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was heard on the receiving end by means of 'horn' speakers.Like the later Hammond organ, the Telharmonium used tonewheels to...
Theremin
Theremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...

Instruments that do not fit into any of the above five categories

A number of instruments neither fit wholly into any one of the above 5 categories, nor can they be properly described as belonging to some combination of these categories.
Within the Hornbostel Sachs system they therefore do not have a number (hence the label NaN = Not a Number).

Hydraulophones

The first three Hornbostel Sachs numbers describe instruments that make sound from matter in its solid state. The fourth HS number describes instruments that make sound from matter in its gaseous state (air). The fifth HS number describes instruments that make sound from electricity.

Recently a number of instruments have been invented, designed, and made, that make sound from matter in its liquid state. This new class of instruments is called hydraulophone

Hydraulophone

A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...

s. Hydraulophones use incompressible fluid such as water as the initial sound-producing medium and may also use the hydraulic fluid as a user-interface.

Plasmaphones

Another category of instruments has recently been invented that use matter in higher energy states such as plasma, to produce the initial sound. These instruments are called plasmaphone

Plasmaphone

A plasmaphone is a musical instrument that produces sound in plasma, or ionized gas, with or without later amplification, processing, or the like....

s. As flame is matter in a high energy state the class comprises the much older pyrophone

Pyrophone

A pyrophone, also known as a "fire/explosion organ" or "fire/explosion calliope" is a musical instrument in which notes are sounded by explosions, or similar forms of rapid combustion, rapid heating, or the like.-Related musical instruments:...

Non-electrophonic quintephones

A number of computational musical instruments that are not electrophones have been invented, designed, built, and used in performances. These instruments are sound synthesizers that use mechanical, optical, or other forms of non-electric computation, sampling, processing, or the like.

It has been proposed that music synthesizers that perform computation, and/or that work by recording and playback of sound samples, or the like, be referred to as quintephones. This class of instrument includes electrophones as a special case. "Natural Interfaces for Musical Expression: Physiphones and a physics-based organology", Proceedings of the 2007 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME07), Pages 118-123, June 6-10, New York, NY, USA.

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