What is the Xylophone?

The Xylophone is a family of mallet percussion instruments that produce sounds by being struck, scraped or rubbed against by the hand, a beater attached to it, a similar instrument or a hard surface. The Xylophone is one of the most popular musical instruments and it has a wide range of timbres and pitches from which to choose. It also has a very high level of resonance. It has many uses, from children’s xylophones and classroom to professional orchestras and is used in schools around the world to help young people develop their music skills.

Xylophones are made from wood and a set of bars are mounted on the top, each bar has different lengths so when they are hit they play different notes depending on how hard the mallet is struck. Xylophones can be made to have resonators which make the sound last longer and help give a more melodious sound. Traditionally a Xylophone was played with wooden-headed mallets and it is this type of xylophone that is still used in the majority of schools. Today, a variety of types of mallets can be used with a Xylophone including polyball, rubber and acrylic. A softer effect can be produced with yarn or soft-core mallets.

It is not known exactly when the Xylophone first appeared but there is evidence of a xylophone-like instrument from the 9th Century in Southeast Asia. This instrument was called a ranat and is still used in some Hindu regions of Malaysia, North Sumatra and Indonesia. It is also found in Java and Bali in Gamelan ensembles.

A modern Xylophone is usually tuned in a way that can cover a wide range of octaves from G to C and is laid out like a piano keyboard. A full-sized Xylophone can have up to four octaves and is a key feature of an orchestra. This instrument was a staple of early jazz and vaudeville bands and was well known amongst musicians such as Red Norvo. It was overtaken in popularity in the 1920s by the metal-key vibraphone but is still used in schools to aid in students musical development.

The Xylophone is also used in modern classical music. It was used by composers such as Shostakovich and Mahler and can be heard in the symphonies of Stravinsky, Debussy and Brahms. A Xylophone is also seen in many popular classical ballets. It is sometimes played by jazz players and can be heard in songs by Bob Becker, Evelyn Glennie and Ian Finkel. It is used in the orchestral works of Ravel and Sibelius and can be compared to the French claquebois, German Holzharmonika or Italian silofono as it has the same layout of wooden bars with resonators but it is a newer instrument. Often toys that are sold as a Xylophone are actually a glockenspiel or metallophone since they use metal rather than wood for the bars. Nevertheless the term Xylophone is still widely used by toy manufacturers and it can be confusing for the general musician.