Xylophone

Xylophone (Greek xylon, “wood”; phone, “sound”), musical percussion instrument consisting of a series of graduated wooden bars that are struck with mallets to produce sound. Xylophones were developed and known in Southeast Asia by the 14th century. In Africa, where the xylophone was possibly imported by way of Madagascar, its use spread throughout the continent, and the xylophone became a prominent instrument in African music. African slaves introduced the xylophone to Latin America, where it is known as a marimba (one of its many African names). It arrived in Europe about 1500 and took root as a folk instrument in central Europe. By the 19th century Polish and Russian performers had popularized the xylophone in western Europe. Its first orchestral use was in Danse Macabre (1874) by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns; the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky used it in Petrushka (1911).

The simplest African xylophones are a pair of bars laid across the player's legs. Usually the bars are mounted on a frame, touching it at a nonvibrating point (called a node) near each end of the bar. Frame-mounted xylophones may have gourd or tubular resonators suspended under each bar (as in the Congolese kalanba, which has gourds); or the frame itself may form a troughlike resonator (as in the Indonesian gambang). The orchestral xylophone has two rows of bars arranged like piano keys; normally, tubular resonators are tuned to each bar. It is typically played with two hard mallets for a dry, penetrating sound, but may also be played with four mallets. The xylophone is a transposing instrument, sounding one octave higher than written. Its usual compass is three-and-a-half or four octaves, running upward from middle C or a sounding F above middle C. The orchestral marimba also has tubular resonators and is typically pitched an octave or more below the xylophone, with a compass as large as five octaves. The marimba sounds at written pitch and is often played with four softer mallets that take advantage of the instrument's beautiful tone and register.

Xylophonelike instruments with metal bars are called metallophones; they include the glockenspiel, vibraharp, and certain instruments used in the gamelan (percussion orchestra) of Indonesia.