Xylophone History
Xylophone History
Xylophone History
The xylophone is an ancient 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 modern instruments by metal tubes. For centuries, xylophone makers struggled with methods of tuning the wooden bars. Old methods consisted of arranging the bars on tied bundles of straw, and, as still practiced today, placing the bars adjacent to each other in a ladder-like layout. Ancient mallets were made of willow wood with spoon-like bowls on the beaten ends.
African xylophonists had the widest variety 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 between the bars and resonators to give the instrument a buzzing sound; these membranes were made of spider cocoons or cigarette papers. In southeastern Africa, the Chopi people play xylophones in groups of as many as six instruments of different sizes and ranges.
In the seventeenth century, African instrumentalists took the xylophone with them to Central America where it was modified and became known as the marimba. The marimba remains popular throughout Mexico and Central America and is considered the national instrument of Guatemala. The Africans who were responsible for the instrument's migration also developed an effective method of tuning it. They carved a gentle arch on the underside of each bar and simply continued 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.
Another type of xylophone, the trough xylophone, is characteristic of the ancient instrument invented in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, and is still played today, especially in Java. The trough xylophone has its bars set across a wooden box with an open top and a bottom that slopes downward toward the bass end. Different ranges of bars from alto to bass can be removed and inserted in the box, so its range can be changed to suit the music. The trough xylophone is a favorite teaching instrument.
Early music for the xylophone was traditional and passed down from teacher to student. A European form of the xylophone first known around the fifteenth century and was developed in Central and Eastern Europe; was probably more closely related to the dulcimer than the African and Asian xylophones. In the nineteenth century, this folk instrument was modified by adding extra rows of bars; four rows became standard. Western composers did not "discover" the xylophone or begin writing classical music for it until the mid-1800s. Hans Christian Lumbye entered the history books as the first 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's ballet "Petrouchka" includes his best-known use of this unusual instrument.
Modern musicians returned to the xylophone in the 1960s with another flurry of
A. Keys. B. Resonators. C. An example of a four-row
xylophone.