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An idiophone is any musical instrument that creates sound primarily by the vibration of the instrument itself, without the use of air flow (as with aerophones), strings (
chordophone String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...
s), membranes (
membranophone A membranophone is any musical instrument which produces sound primarily by way of a vibrating stretched membrane. It is one of the four main divisions of instruments in the original Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification. ...
s) or electricity ( electrophones). It is the first of the four main divisions in the original
Hornbostel–Sachs Hornbostel–Sachs or Sachs–Hornbostel is a system of musical instrument classification devised by Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, and first published in the in 1914. An English translation was published in the '' Galpin Society Jo ...
system of musical instrument classification (see
List of idiophones by Hornbostel–Sachs number The Hornbostel–Sachs system of musical instrument classification defines idiophones as all instruments in which sound is produced primarily by way of the instrument itself vibrating without the use of membranes or strings. Idiophones (1) Stru ...
). The early classification of
Victor-Charles Mahillon Victor-Charles Mahillon (March 10, 1841 in Brussels – June 17, 1924 in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France) was a Belgian musician, instrument builder and writer on musical topics. He was the founder and first curator of the Musée instrumental du Cons ...
called this group of instruments ''autophones''. The most common are struck idiophones, or concussion idiophones, which are made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand (like the wood block,
singing bowl A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell (instrument), bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are ...
, steel tongue drum,
triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
or
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) or indirectly, with scraping or shaking motions (like
maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...
s or
flexatone The flexatone or fleximetal is a modern percussion instrument (an indirectly struck idiophone) consisting of a small flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame ending in a handle. Used in classic cartoons for its glissando effect, its sou ...
). Various types of bells fall into both categories. A common plucked idiophone is the Jew's harp. According to
Sachs Sachs is a German surname, meaning "man from Saxony". Sachs is a common surname among Ashkenazi Jews from Saxony, in the United States sometimes adopted in the variant Zaks, supposedly in reference to the Hebrew phrase ''Zera Kodesh Shemo'' (ZaKS), ...
, idiophones


Etymology

The word is from Ancient Greek, a combination of ''idio-'' ("own, personal" or "distinct") and ''-phone'' ("voice, sound").


Categories

Most
percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
s that are not drums are idiophones. Hornbostel–Sachs divides idiophones into four main sub-categories. The first division is the struck idiophones (also known sometimes as concussion idiophones). This includes most of the non-drum percussion instruments familiar in the West. They include all idiophones made to vibrate by being struck, either directly with a stick or hand (like the wood block,
singing bowl A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell (instrument), bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are ...
, steel tongue drum,
triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...
or
marimba The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) or indirectly, by way of a scraping or shaking motion (like
maraca A maraca (), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas (from Guaraní ), also known as tamaracas, were ...
s or
flexatone The flexatone or fleximetal is a modern percussion instrument (an indirectly struck idiophone) consisting of a small flexible metal sheet suspended in a wire frame ending in a handle. Used in classic cartoons for its glissando effect, its sou ...
). Various types of bells fall into both categories. The other three subdivisions are rarer. They are plucked idiophones, such as the Jew's harp, amplified cactus,
kouxian ''Kouxian'' () is a general Chinese term for any variety of jaw harp. The jaw harp is a plucked idiophone in which the lamella is mounted in a small frame, and the player's open mouth serves as a resonance chamber. Chinese jaw harps may comp ...
, dan moi,
music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...
and
mbira Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...
( lamellophone or thumb piano); blown idiophones, of which there are a very small number of examples, the
Aeolsklavier The aeolodion or aeolodicon (also called in Germany ''Windharmonika'') is an obsolete keyed wind instrument resembling the harmonium, its tone being produced from steel springs. It had a range of six octaves, and its tone was similar to that of t ...
being one; and friction idiophones, such as the
singing bowl A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell (instrument), bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are ...
, glass harmonica, glass harp,
turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
, verrophone, daxophone, styrophone, musical saw, and
nail violin } The nail violin is a musical instrument which was invented by German violinist Johann Wilde in 1740. The instrument consists of a semicircular wooden Sound board (music), soundboard, approximately by in size, with iron or brass Nail (engineering ...
(a number of pieces of metal or wood rubbed with a bow). Other classifications use six main sub-categories. * Concussion idiophones are instruments that produce sound by being struck against one another. *
Percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
idiophones produce sound by being struck with a non-vibrating foreign object. Examples of non-vibrating objects are
mallets A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. The term is descriptive of the overall size and propor ...
, hammers, and sticks. * Rattle idiophones are shaken. * Scraper idiophones are instruments that are scraped with a stick or other foreign objects to give off a sound. * Plucked idiophones produce sound by plucking a flexible tongue from within the instrument itself. * Friction idiophones are rubbed to increase vibration and sound intensity. For example, a pop toob is a brand name for a noisemaker or musical instrument consisting of tubes that are extendable, bendable, and connectable, with the noise being created concussively by the bending and unbending, or popping, of the tube's corrugation,United States. Patent and Trademark Office (1995).
Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office: Trademarks, Volume 1176, Issue 1
', p.288. U.S. Department of Commerce, Patent and Trademark Office

an

whereas a whirly tube uses corrugated tubing and the difference in speed and thus air pressure to create an aerophone when spun in a circle.


Design

Most idiophones are made of
glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...
,
metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...
,
ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
s, and
wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
. They are considered part of the
percussion section The percussion section is one of the main divisions of the orchestra and the concert band. It includes most percussion instruments and all unpitched instruments. The percussion section is itself divided into three subsections: * Pitched percus ...
in an
orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
. A number of idiophones that are normally struck, such as
vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist ...
bars and cymbals, can also be bowed.


See also

*
Pitched percussion instrument A pitched percussion instrument (also known as a melodic or tuned percussion instrument) is a percussion instrument used to produce musical notes of one or more pitches, as opposed to an unpitched percussion instrument which is used to produce ...
*
Lithophone A lithophone is a musical instrument consisting of a rock or pieces of rock which are struck to produce musical notes. Notes may be sounded in combination (producing harmony) or in succession (melody). It is an idiophone comparable to instrumen ...


References


External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20130115040826/http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/texti/Idiophone.html {{Authority control