Xylophone
Xylophone, from Greek xylon and phone, “ wood ” and “ sound ”, percussion instrument conforming of a set of graduated, tuned rustic bars supported at nodal( nonvibrating) points and struck with sticks or padded mallets.
The xylophone conceivably began in Southeast Asia or Oceania and moment exists in forms as simple as two or three logs laid across a player’s legs or as rustic crossbeams set across two supports similar as logs; a hole dug in the earth may act as a reverberating chamber. Most frequently the rustic bars may be set on separating material and projected in place along two edges of a resonator box or suspended above it with cords. The Indonesian gam bang is an illustration of the former and the Thai rant family of the ultimate.
Both styles are wide in Southeast Asia, as are their designs in metallophones similar as the sarong and gender of Indonesia. Xylophones appeared by the 18th century in near China, but primarily they were used by Chinese colonies in the Southeast Asian countries, similar as Vietnam.
The simple Moken xylophone set up in the off- stage music of the Japanese Kabuki theatre may have come from the Chinese trafficker colony of Southeast Asia or from their tea house ensembles in Nagasaki. Xylophones haven’t played a major part in East Asian music, still.
In discrepancy, numerous forms of xylophones are set up in Africa. numerous African xylophones show parallels to those of Southeast Asia in tuning and construction, but questions of the influences of trade and migration are controversial. The amadinda is made of logs. Gourd resonators are frequently handed for each key, occasionally with a mirliton( wobbling membrane) set in the resonator wall, giving a buzzing edge to the tone.
It’s known in Latin America as a marimba( one of its African names) and was presumably taken there by African slaves; xylophones with calabash resonators live in the Bantu- language areas of Africa under the name marimba. Other common names for similar instruments in West Africa are balo or balafon. Xylophones without resonators are inversely common. They include so- called free- crucial xylophones in which the keys are simply placed over two logs or a hole.
Exemplifications of more complicated fixed- crucial performances are those in which the keys and resonators are fixed in an bow structure that the player holds to the front. While utmost keys on xylophones worldwide increase in pitch from left to right, there are African models in which the keys increase in pitch outward from the center to accommodate the natural movements of the arms. Yet other instruments may place octaves next to each other and the smallest pitches to the right. The variety and musicality of African xylophones is emotional.
The xylophone is first mentioned in Europe in 1511. Known as hölzernes Gelächter( “ rustic percussion ”) or Strohfiedel( “ straw swindle, ” because the bars were supported on straw), it was long a Central European folk instrument, in which the bars extended down from the player rather of in a line across him.
Carillonneurs in Flanders and the Netherlands frequently used a keyboard interpretation as a practice instrument. About 1830 it came immensely popular through the musicales of the touring Polish virtuoso Michal Jozef Guzikov, who used the also common “ four- road ” instrument( having four staggered rows, tuned chromatically — i.e., to a 12- note scale). It came a fashionable solo and theater musicale instrument.
In its 21st- century form the Western xylophone’s keys are generally arranged in two rows, kindly like piano keys, on a stage; to ameliorate the tone, a concave groove is cut along the underpart of each plate. Although rosewood is the favorite choice for plates, synthetic accoutrements can be used.
Tube resonators may also be handed. The ultramodern compass is either 4 octaves overhead from middle C or 3 1/ 2 octaves from the F or G above middle C. Contemporary players frequently use two sticks in each hand as the force continues to come more complex.
Notable Workshop that use the Western xylophone prominently include Le Marteau sans maître( 1954; The Hammer Without a Master) by Pierre Boulez, The Golden Age( 1930) by Dmitry Shostakovich, and the solo piece Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints( 1965) by Alan Hovhaness. Western metallophones related to the xylophone include the glockenspiel and vibraphone.
