Expert needed to resolve instrument argument

Fibonacci

Is there anyone on this board that might be able to resolve a discussion we were having in pub last night. Is a guitar a percussion or string instrument?

One person’s argument was since you ‘strike’ a guitar it is classified as a percussion instrument. The rejoinder was that if this was true then the double bass would be considered a percussion instrument too.

Can anyone resolve our discussion?

Thanks.

PurpleFistMixer

Well, a double bass is more plucked than struck, really. Unless you do that weird thing where you turn the bow over and hit the string with the wood, but that doesn't really count.

I'd say a guitar would be a string instrument, since it uses strings to create its sound.. but then again, we've got pianos. I think they fall under the 2 categories actually. But yeah, guitar would be string I reckon.

Gordon

Classification in musical instruments is a bit misconstruing if you go into that level of argument.

Musical notes are obtained from percussive instruments and percussive tones are achieved from stringed instruments but to easily classify something the subsets exist the way they are now.

Everything therefore is a percussive instrument bar the theramin and the sympathetic strings on a sitar for example, oh, and the harpsichord for its pluckedness. But to classify everything as a percussive instrument isn't helpful for classification.

I would imagine that percussion instruments would be instruments that are struck to obtain a percussive sound as opposed to a definate note. And although drums can be tuned - their notes would be considered less as notes and more as a rythmical percussive sound.

Interesting debate that one though, both sides have much credence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_instrument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringed_instrument

PurpleFistMixer

There are 2 kind of percussion instruments - tuned and untuned. Untuned being snare drum and stuff, but tuned ones like tubular bells would be producing a definite note...

Gordon

Ah yeah, didn't think about those types. But drums do get tuned, snare drums for example.

PurpleFistMixer

Oh, whoops. My ignorance is showing.

Doctor J

It depends how you play it, IMO both arguements are valid. If you excite the strings and the sound you use is the strings vibration transduced by the pickups then, yes, undoubtedly a guitar is a string instrument. However, if you remove the strings from the guitar and create sounds by rubbing a screwdriver off the polepieces of the pickup, it is still a guitar but without strings, is it really a string instrument?

Flamenco guitar is both string based and percussive, using the natural boominess of an acoustic instrument as well as the strings.

John

Also depends on what you use to play the strings. I'd class slapping and popping bass as percussive yet using an ebow doesn't involve touching the string at all (apart from fretting it of course).

spencerpt

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