Curt Sachs & Erich Moritz von Hornbostel: Pioneers of Musicology

Curt Sachs

* German-American musicologist

* Considered by many to be the founder of modern comparative musicology

* Born on July 29, 1881, in Berlin, Germany

* Died on February 4, 1959, in New York City

* Worked as a music critic, record producer, and teacher

* His most famous work is _The History of Musical Instruments_ (1940)

Erich Moritz von Hornbostel

* Austrian musicologist and anthropologist

* Co-creator of the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification

* Born on February 18, 1877, in Vienna, Austria

* Died on December 28, 1935, in Cambridge, England

* Worked as a professor of musicology at the University of Berlin

* His most famous work is _Systematik der Musikinstrumente_ (1914), written with Curt Sachs

The Hornbostel-Sachs System of Musical Instrument Classification

* The most widely used system of musical instrument classification in the world

* Divides musical instruments into four main categories:

- Idiophones

- Membranophones

- Chordophones

- Aerophones

* Each category is then further divided into subcategories