XYLOPHONE

Xylophone and mallets. Click on the audio icon beneath the art to hear the sound of a xylophone. (from Greek xylon and phone: wood and sound), percussion instrument consisting of a set of graduated, tuned wooden bars supported at nodal (nonvibrating) points and struck with padded mallets. The xylophone possibly originated in Southeast Asia or Oceania and today exists in forms as simple as two or three logs laid across a player's legs or as wooden slabs set across two supports such as logs; a pit dug in the earth may act as a resonating chamber. In more complex forms the wooden bars are affixed to a frame and often supplied with resonators integral to the instrument. Among the most highly developed types is the Indonesian gambang, in which the bars are pinned on the edges of a wooden trough that serves as a resonator. Possessing a range of about 3 1/2 or 4 octaves, the gambang is used in the gamelan (Indonesian percussion orchestra). It was known as early as the 8th century and gave rise to similar instruments with metal keys (metallophones) also prominent in Indonesian music. Xylophones were introduced into China from Burma (now Myanmar) in the late 18th century. The xylophone is also one of the principal instruments of African music, being found in many forms. The amadinda is made of logs. Gourd resonators are often provided for each key, sometimes with a mirliton (vibrating membrane) set in the resonator wall, giving a buzzing edge to the tone. Many African xylophones show similarities to those of Southeast Asia in tuning and construction, and they may have come to Africa through trade or migrating peoples. It is known in Latin America as a marimba (one of its African names) and was probably taken there by African slaves. The xylophone is first mentioned in Europe in 1511. Known as hlzernes Gelchter (wooden percussion) or Strohfiedel (straw fiddle, because the bars were supported on straw), it was long a Central European folk instrument, in which the bars extended away from the player instead of in a line across him. Carillonneurs in Flanders and the Netherlands often used a keyboard version as a practice instrument. About 1830 it became immensely popular through the concerts of the touring Polish virtuoso Michal Jozef Guzikov, who used the then common four-street instrument (having four staggered rows, tuned chromaticallyi.e., to a 12-note scale). It became a fashionable solo and garden concert instrument. In its 20th-century form the xylophone's keys are usually arranged in two rows, somewhat like piano keys, on a stand; to improve the tone, a hollow groove is cut along the underside of each plate. Tube resonators are often provided. The compass is normally four octaves upward from middle C. Works using it include Le Marteau sans matre (1954; The Hammer Without a Master) by Pierre Boulez and The Golden Age (1930), by Dmitry Shostakovich. Western metallophones related to the xylophone include the glockenspiel and vibraphone.