How To Make Xylophone Mallets

Xylophone

Groundwork

The xylophone is a component of the percussion section of an orchestra and many instrumental groups. Its unique sound, relative rarity, and advent make it fascinating to the listener. The xylophone has a close cousin called the marimba. Both instruments consist of wooden keys mounted on a wooden frame over a series of metal tubes called resonators. Hammering on the wooden keys causes the impact to resonate through the tubes. The xylophone has a breakable, metallic audio, while the marimba is somewhat more mellow or wooden to the listener.

The xylophone and marimba differ in range. Depending on the model, a xylophone encompasses two to four octaves. Its highest note is the same equally C-88 on the piano. The marimba covers 2-and-a-half to four-and-a-half octaves with C-76 the highest note. This ways that the marimba is ane octave lower than the xylophone in range. Music is written for the xylophone equally an effects instrument. It rarely is used to play solos with an orchestra or ensemble. The marimba's large resonators make it sound more similar an organ. Composers write more than music for the marimba as a solo instrument, and its sound range is and then broad that it tin make music like a full orchestra.

The sound produced from the xylophone depends heavily on the skill of the player. The player stands to play the xylophone and faces the center of the instrument. He or she must stand cock, hold the mallets (hammers or beaters) betwixt the pollex and first articulation of the first finger with 1 mallet per hand. The wrists are used to motion the mallets smoothly up and down; the palms face up out. The arms are held downwardly most the keyboard and do not move. The xylophonist plays the lower register by taking one step to the left and the upper register by making one step to the right. The role player always returns to center. Notes are struck in the centers of the confined or keys. Flats and sharps are struck along the edges of the bars merely not the office of the bar that rests straight on the frame. The everyman end of the xylophone is the widest, and the highest notes are at the narrow finish.

The mallets are also important to the audio produced. The instrumentalist must cull the right mallets to either alloy in or project to a higher place the other instruments, depending on the book needed and the character of the music. Xylophone players typically use rubber mallets made either of medium, hard, or actress hard rubber. Marimba players employ mallets of soft rubber or medium soft woven yarn.

Mallet grip is critical to the proper technique for playing whatever of the mallet instruments. The player must stay relaxed but completely controlled; ease of movement or menstruation is very important to the sound produced. Both hands hold the mallets the same way, which is called a "matched grip." The point where each mallet is held between the thumb and the first articulation of the commencement finger is chosen the pivot point. The other fingers curve around the stick portion of the mallet in a relaxed curl. Any pinching will constrict the sound and tire the histrion. The pivot point allows the mallet to rebound naturally, and force is provided past the combined movement of the finger, wrist, and forearm. The player volition acquire to place the pivot point at the point of balance betwixt the ball of the mallet and the stop of the stick or handle. The grip is nearly the same as the right hand grip for playing the snare drum.

The bars on the keyboard of the xylophone look much like the black and white keys of a piano. The best sound comes from striking the middle of each bar, although very fast passages are played at the ends of the bars. The place where the bar passes over the chord or frame of the xylophone produces a dead sound, so this is avoided. The xylophone is not pounded with the mallets; instead, the correct rebound of the mallets pulls more rounded tones out of the bars. Get-go players acquire to strike the centers of the bars to develop their feel for the reach from bar to bar. With increasing skill in getting the right tones from the bars, students can expand the parts of the bars they use to vary the sound and volume.

History

The xylophone is an ancient musical instrument that originated independently in Africa and Asia. Wooden bars were originally seated on a series of hollow gourds, and the gourds generated the resonating notes that are produced on mod instruments past metal tubes. For centuries, xylophone makers struggled with methods of tuning the wooden confined. Old methods consisted of arranging the bars on tied bundles of harbinger, and, as still practiced today, placing the bars adjacent to each other in a ladder-like layout. Ancient mallets were fabricated of willow wood with spoon-like bowls on the browbeaten ends.

African xylophonists had the widest multifariousness of instruments, including some that were plucked instead of hammered and lightweight instruments that were suspended on a rope around the player's neck. They used wooden boxes for resonators as well as clay pots in Nigeria and pits in the ground in Kenya and Central and West Africa. They inserted membranes betwixt the bars and resonators to requite the instrument a buzzing sound; these membranes were fabricated of spider cocoons or cigarette papers. In southeastern Africa, the Chopi people play xylophones in groups of every bit many as six instruments of unlike sizes and ranges.

In the seventeenth century, African instrumentalists took the xylophone with them to Central America where information technology was modified and became known as the marimba. The marimba remains popular throughout United mexican states and Key America and is considered the national instrument of Guatemala. The Africans who were responsible for the instrument's migration as well developed an constructive method of tuning it. They carved a gentle curvation on the underside of each bar and simply connected carving until the bar was tuned accurately. This arch is called an "arcuate notch" and is the key to the tunefulness of the xylophone, marimba, and all other members of the xylophone family unit.

Another type of xylophone, the trough xylophone, is feature of the aboriginal instrument invented in Republic of indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is notwithstanding played today, especially in Java. The trough xylophone has its bars set across a wooden box with an open acme and a bottom that slopes downwardly toward the bass terminate. Different ranges of bars from alto to bass tin can exist removed and inserted in the box, so its range can be inverse to suit the music. The trough xylophone is a favorite education instrument.

Early music for the xylophone was traditional and passed down from instructor to student. A European form of the xylophone beginning known around the fifteenth century and was developed in Central and Eastern Europe; was probably more than closely related to the dulcimer than the African and Asian xylophones. In the nineteenth century, this folk instrument was modified past adding extra rows of confined; four rows became standard. Western composers did not "observe" the xylophone or begin writing classical music for it until the mid-1800s. Hans Christian Lumbye entered the history books as the outset western composer to write a score for the xylophone in his 1873 "Traumbilder." The French composer Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) incorporated the xylophone in his 1874 "Danse Macabre." Spanish composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) used the xylophone for some percussion in his dances from "The Three Cornered Hat". The Russian composers Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (1903-1978) and Igor Fydorovich Stravinsky (1882-1971) experimented with many percussive types in their pioneering forays into modern Russian compositions. Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance" from his ballet called "Gayane Suite" has a challenging xylophone part, and Stravinsky'due south ballet "Petrouchka" includes his best-known apply of this unusual musical instrument.

Modern musicians returned to the xylophone in the 1960s with another flurry of

A. Keys. B. Resonators. C. An instance of a four-row xylophone.

interest in writing for the instrument. In 1961, Istv n Lang wrote a concerto for xylophone, and his Japanese analogue, Toshiro Mayuzumi, composed a xylophone concertino in 1965. Also in the 1960s, a variation on the xylophone called the xylorimba was rediscovered. It had been created early in the twentieth century to give the xylophone greater range. Alban Berg (1885-1935) wrote "Iii Pieces for Orchestra" in 1915, which demonstrated the xylorimba's capabilities. Some other piece chosen "Hymnody" featured it in a chamber group written in 1963 by English composer Roberto Gerhard. Gerhard was born in Spain and may have learned of the xylorimba through his Spanish connections. His limerick required two players for the musical instrument.

Raw Materials

The materials needed to make an orchestral quality xylophone begin with rosewood for the bars. Some teaching instruments for schools are fabricated with keys fabricated from synthetic materials, just a true xylophone must have rosewood keys. Resonators are made from aluminum tubing that is too acquired in bulk from a specialty metal fabricator. Cords or pads of felt, synthetic, condom, wood, or other materials support the keys at the nodal points where they rest on the frame over the resonators.

The frame itself may exist constructed of metal or any wood, depending on the preferences of the customer and the manufacturer for the finished advent of the musical instrument. Xylophones for high school and college marching

The ranges of various percussion instruments.

bands take tremendous abuse equally they are transported from location to location, so the frame may be constructed of particle board that is hands replaced, patched, or painted if damaged. Instruments used by professional percussionists are unremarkably crafted with frames of fine forest that are finished by skilled craftsmen. The frames, however, are still elementary and unomamented, unlike other wooden instruments. Stains and varnishes are used to finish the wood.

The Manufacturing Process

1. Structure of a xylophone begins with a design drawing. Xylophone manufacture is based on traditional designs with little variation, so the blueprint process is express to selecting the size or range of the xylophone and the stop of the frame.
2. Rosewood for the keys is purchased in bulk. Sections long enough to produce several keys are cut and the wood is stored and aged for approximately 2 years before the keys are cutting. The xylophone bars or keys are cut to lengths ranging from long keys for the low notes to shorter keys for the higher notes. The keys are a standard width of 1.five in (3.viii cm) and a thickness of 1 in (two.v cm). Holes are drilled at the support ends where the keys will exist fitted to the nodes. The craftsman must then carve out the arcuate notch, the gentle arch on the underside of the key that provides authentic pitch. He does this in a series of cautious steps—carving to rough tune, checking the pitch, carving to truer melody, checking the pitch, carving to final tune, and confirming the pitch. After final tuning, the bar is gently sanded. When all the bars are tuned, they are polished, stained, and varnished. Choice of the colour of stain is fabricated past the customer and manufacturer.
3. Aluminum tubular resonators are made from tubing purchased from a metallic fabricator. The tubes must be well made with uniform circumferences and smooth finishes that will not detract from the sound quality. The tubes are cut to lengths that depend more than on the finished appearance of the xylophone. Unremarkably, the lesser ends of the tubes take a tapered length with longer tubes at the bass end and shorter tubes toward the higher stop of the range, or an arched effect from one stop to the other. The length of the tubes does not matter for sound product considering the tubes are stopped inside similar organ pipes. The closing piece is added near the lower terminate one time the tube has been tuned to its bar.
4. The frame is synthetic as a split up operation while the keys and tubes are being cutting and tuned. The outer perimeter underneath the keys is usually made of quality wood that is finished to match the color of the keys. Legs or supports are made of wood or metal and are bolted to the frame. The feet touching the floor are fitted with castors that tin exist locked so the xylophone won't move as its beingness played or with rubber or synthetic feet.
5. When the confined are complete, each ane is examination-fitted over its resonator and the resonator is tuned past inserting the stop. The bars are then fitted over the nodal points and screwed into place with standard wood screws. The tubes are riveted together and suspended on the frame.
6. Each mallet or beater consists of 2 parts, the stick and the head. The stick is fabricated of bamboo, rattan, birch, or fiberglass. The spherical heads or ends are fabricated of hard rubber or plastic with an internal core of cord that is wound much like the within of a golf game ball. Heads fabricated for xylophone and marimba mallets are too woven of tightly wrapped wool. Xylophone players utilise 3 varieties of mallets synthetic with different combinations of stick and head to produce a wider diverseness of sound. Players choose the beaters based on the music they are playing, the audio of their instrument, and their own wrist strength and technique.

Quality Control

Xylophone makers are skilled craftsmen with woodworking capabilities equivalent to those of chiffonier makers. They take professional person pride in producing high-quality instruments that live upwardly to or exceed established standards of xylophone making. Considering industry is a arts and crafts, each step is done co-ordinate to the quality command requirements of the builder. The iterative steps of tuning the bars is considered the unmarried-most of import office of xylophone manufacture, and the repetition itself is a quality mensurate.

Byproducts/Waste material

Xylophone makers do generate byproducts. Typically, they offering a line of xylophones ranging from small or piccolo xylophones to bass models for orchestras or individual instrumentalists. Some besides make other types of percussion instruments especially those in the xylophone family.

Very trivial waste results from xylophone manufacture. Rosewood is besides valuable a commodity to be used frivolously, and the only wood chip consists of shavings from tuning the keys and minor end bit. Aluminum scrap is returned to the supplier for recycling.

The craftsmen handle a limited range of hazardous equipment and nigh no hazardous materials. Demote cutters are used to cut the tubular resonators and the wood keys. Paw tools are needed to tune the keys. Safety glasses are worn during all operations. Quantities of stain and varnish are minor; these materials are stored and handled safely, and there are no related disposal or waste hazards.

The Future

The xylophone itself is an established player in an orchestra's percussion assortment; just its range, repertoire, and opportunities for significant growth are limited by both tradition and possibility. In recent years, its close cousin the marimba has grown considerably in popularity because of the involvement in Latin, jazz, and percussive music and a broadening of the repertoire. Music enthusiasts hope the xylophone will also increase in popularity, but it will assuredly be a valued orchestra fellow member because of its unique musical vox.

Where to Learn More

Books

Baines, Anthony. The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments. New York: Oxford University Printing, 1992.

Bragard, Roger, and Ferdinand J. De Hen. Musical Instruments in Art and History. New York: The Viking Press, 1967.

Dearling, Robert, ed. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments. New York: Schirmer Books, 1996.

Sachs, Curt. The History of Musical Instruments. New York: Westward. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1940.

Thamm, Duane. The Complete Xylophone & Marimba Method. Glenview, IL: Artistic Music, 1966.

Other

Mallet Works Music. http://www.mallet-works.com (June 26, 2000).

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australia. The Instruments in an Orchestra. http://www.mso.com.au/edu/pages/orchestra/percussion (June 26, 2000).

Scott, W. L. Xylophone. http://www.musicrafts.com (June 26, 2000).

Vibraphone Web Site. http://world wide web.thevibe.net (June 26, 2000).

— Gillian S. Holmes

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