Xylophone

One word, many instruments

The word xylophone comes from Greek roots meaning wood and sound, and it names a family far older than any orchestra. Struck wooden bars tuned to pitches appear in Africa and Southeast Asia, and scholars debate whether the type spread from one region to the other or arose independently in each. Evidence is incomplete. Indonesian temple reliefs from the eighth to fourteenth centuries show instruments that have been compared with later xylophones, though identifications are not always certain.

European records begin in the early sixteenth century, including a German organ builder’s mention of a wooden instrument and woodcuts of the 1520s that show skeletons playing it. For centuries it was a folk and street instrument. Its concert life began in the nineteenth century, and Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre of 1874 used it to imitate rattling bones. The chromatic instrument standard today emerged in the late 1800s and early 1900s and became popular in vaudeville and recordings.

Bars, cords and resonating tubes

The orchestral xylophone is built like a Piano keyboard laid flat. Bars arranged in two rows, natural notes in front and sharps and flats raised behind, rest on a frame, and each is suspended on cord that passes through holes at the nodes, the points that barely move when the bar sounds. A model in the Grinnell collection has 44 rosewood bars ranging from about 5 to 17 inches long.

Tuning is done by carving the underside of each bar, removing wood in the middle to lower pitch and from near the ends to raise it. Metal tubes below the bars reinforce each note. Rosewood has long been favoured for its bright, hard sound, and modern bars of synthetic composite materials offer greater consistency and durability, at the cost of a slightly different colour. Mallets have heads of plastic, hard rubber or wood.

A bright click with a short tail

When a bar is struck it bends and rings. A well-tuned bar sounds a clear fundamental with a small set of overtones shaped by the carving, and the resonator tube beneath it strengthens the fundamental. Hard mallets and thick, dense bars make a dry, penetrating attack and a short decay, which suits rapid passages but makes sustained notes hard.

To sustain a note, players use tremolo, alternating mallets in rapid, even strokes so the repeated attacks blend into a continuous line. The sound cuts through a full orchestra and carries far, which is why composers use it for glittering runs, skeletal effects and pointed rhythmic accents. Softer mallets warm the tone, but it never has the glow of the marimba’s longer, deeper resonators.

Sounding an octave above the page

The standard orchestral xylophone covers about three and a half octaves, F4 to C8, with some models extending slightly lower. Its parts are written an octave below sounding pitch, a convention that avoids long strings of ledger lines above the treble staff. The instrument sits at the top of the orchestra’s tuned percussion, in the same region as the piccolo.

Within that span the colour is fairly even, though the lowest notes are somewhat more resonant and the highest more brittle. Because each bar is an independent sounding body and there are no sustaining mechanisms, the xylophone’s dynamic contrast comes from mallet hardness and stroke height. It is not the same as a glockenspiel, whose metal bars sound higher and ring longer, or a Vibraphone, whose metal bars and motor-driven resonators add vibrato.

Standing at the keyboard

Players stand in front of the instrument and usually hold two mallets, one in each hand, though some players use three or four. The arms cover the keyboard with large, efficient motions, and the wrists control the rebound. Because the part is written an octave lower than it sounds, the player reads at written pitch and the instrument does the transposing.

Technique emphasizes accuracy at speed. Players learn to choose sticking patterns that avoid awkward crossings, and to keep the mallet close to the bar so the stroke lands cleanly. Rolls are made with alternating mallets, and some pieces call for glissandi across the bars. Many percussionists learn xylophone alongside marimba and vibraphone, since the basic keyboard skills transfer.

Older, wider, and differently tuned

The West African balafon, of which the Penn Museum holds a nineteen-bar example from Senegal, hangs gourd resonators beneath its bars. The lo-gyil of the Dagara people in northern Ghana has fourteen keys in a pentatonic scale, with small membranes over holes in its gourds that add a buzzing edge. The gambang of Java, with twenty wooden keys resting over a teak trough, is one of the gamelan’s ensemble instruments.

Many other xylophones exist, including the Ugandan amadinda, the Thai ranat ek, and bamboo instruments for angklung orchestras. Most do not use the Western chromatic layout: they are tuned to their own scales and traditions. The Marimba, whose history draws on African and Central American traditions, is a related family of larger, lower-pitched bar instruments with resonators, and orchestral marimbas are often confused with the xylophone.

Bones, bands and solo virtuosos

In the orchestra the xylophone is a coloristic voice, appearing for brief, vivid effects rather than sustained melody. Composers of the twentieth century used it for mechanical rhythms, dance music and sharp punctuation. Concert bands and percussion ensembles rely on it for rapid figures and doubling of woodwind lines.

In the early twentieth century, xylophone solos were popular on recordings and in vaudeville, where its sharp attack is often said to have recorded well on early equipment. In Africa and Southeast Asia, xylophones remain part of living traditions, played in dance, ceremony and ensemble music, often in groups in which several players interlock their parts.

Looking after wood and cord

Wooden bars are sensitive to humidity and temperature, which can change their tuning and, over time, cause cracking. Instruments are best kept away from radiators, direct sun and damp, and covered when not in use. Suspension cord wears over time and is replaced by technicians, and the bars should not be stacked or dropped.

Mallets need attention too. Plastic and rubber heads harden, chip and mark the bars if they wear unevenly, so players keep sets of different hardness and replace them when they degrade. Dust on the bars and in the resonators can be wiped away with a soft, dry cloth, and any cleaning agents must be chosen with care to avoid damaging the wood’s finish or the tuning.

Small facts worth knowing

• A German organist’s early-sixteenth-century treatise mentions the instrument under an old German name, making it one of the earliest written European references.
• The Grinnell xylophone’s bars are about 1.6 inches wide and 0.9 inches thick.
• The Horniman Museum holds a bamboo xylophone made for an angklung orchestra.
• The Penn Museum’s Senegalese balafon entered the collection in 2003 as a gift from another Philadelphia museum.

Terms used in this entry

balafon

A West African xylophone with gourd resonators beneath the bars.

bar

A tuned slab of wood or synthetic material that is struck to produce a pitch; also called a key.

chromatic

Including all twelve semitones of the octave.

gambang

A Javanese xylophone with wooden keys over a resonating trough, played in gamelan.

idiophone

An instrument whose own body vibrates to make sound, without strings, reeds or membranes.

node

A point on a vibrating bar that barely moves, where the support cord passes through.

pentatonic

A scale of five notes per octave, common in many xylophone traditions.

resonator

A tube or gourd placed beneath a bar to reinforce its sound.

tremolo

Rapid repetition of a single note, made on the xylophone by alternating mallets.

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References

1. Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection. xylophone. omeka-s.grinnell.edu/s/MusicalInstruments/item/972
2. Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection. lo-gyil. omeka-s.grinnell.edu/s/MusicalInstruments/item/2665
3. Grinnell College Musical Instrument Collection. gambang. omeka-s.grinnell.edu/s/MusicalInstruments/item/1223
4. Penn Museum. Xylophone - 2003-72-14A | Collections - Penn Museum. collections.penn.museum/collections/object/372569
5. Horniman Museum and Gardens. xylophone - Horniman Museum and Gardens. horniman.ac.uk/object/HC.1999.1233
6. Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Xylophone - Dallas Symphony Orchestra. dallassymphony.org/community-education/dso-kids/listen-watch/instruments/xylophone

Sources were consulted for facts and context; the text is original. See Sources and Methodology.