While there have been many attempts to produce a satisfactory scheme for the classification of musical instruments, all in some respects, and some in many respects, fall short of the ideal. Properly speaking, and as scientists understand the term, a classification is a system into which facts can be integrated in order to show their relationships and their affinities. The Hornbostel and Sachs Systematik (1914) comes nearest to being such a classification, but it is little used; a few books make use of the larger criteria, down to the first two or three figures. Because it is a numerical system, it has the advantage that two musicologists without a common language can cite instruments to each other, knowing that the figures mean the same thing in both languages, but this very advantage means that the system is, in detail, unworkable. Because it is a decimal system, when one wishes to describe an instrument which was unknown to Sachs and Hornbostel, or which had not been invented in 1914, and any classification system must allow for such things, there may be no logical-logical because the Systematik is on the whole a progressive system-place for its insertion. This is because in a decimal system there is no satisfactory solution to the problem that there is no figure between one and two, except for a subdivision of one. This means that each set of figures can be extended infinitely longitudinally; one may add finer and finer criteria simply by adding figures. There is, however, no way in which to expand laterally. Take, for example, Concussion Sticks, 111.11. Let us suppose that one has the latest Ludwig type of claves, made for musicians in our culture to play Latin American dance music. These are hollow and are thus Concussion Tubes. Being hollow sticks, and derivatives of sticks, they should follow sticks in the Systematik, but this they cannot do, for 111.12 is already allocated to Concussion Plaques. There is, throughout the Systematik, no provision for combination instruments, for the medieval triangle, for example, which has rattling rings suspended on a percussion stick. The Scottish bagpipe is a further example. It is a combination of 422.112 (double reed, conical bore pipe, with finger holes) and 422.221.1 (single reed, cylindrical bore pipes, in sets, no finger holes) allied to a suffix of -62 for a flexible reservoir, presumably with a further figure to show whether it is mouth blown (Highland type) or bellows blown (Lowland type). Other varieties of bagpipe would need a double suffix