Haut and Bas; The Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Middle Ages

In this age of specialization we have naturally come to think of musical instruments as belonging to families of the same species, all having like characteristics. This division according to type (string, reed, or woodwind, brass and percussion) was revised and, as it were, broken down by musicologists and ethnologists working together into groups of sub-species according not only to type, but to method of producing sound as well ¹ . It may seem strange to the concert-goer of today, who sees the orchestra conveniently displayed in four so-called family sections, to envisage an entirely different system of grouping musical instruments. Such was the case, however, during the later Middle Ages.