born Feb. 25, 1877, Vienna, Austria
died Nov. 28, 1935, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.
Austrian ethnomusicologist.
Born into a musical family in Vienna, he was by his teens a skilled pianist and composer. After taking a doctorate in chemistry, he became involved in psychological research, and his studies of tonal perception were pioneering research in what would become the field of ethnomusicology . He helped establish the research program for the field and the methods used to carry it out, including field recordings. In 1912 he devised, with Curt Sachs , the cross-cultural system of classification of musical instruments that is still in use.