The marimbaphone (not to be confused with the similarly named
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
) is an obsolete tuned percussion instrument, developed by the
J.C. Deagan Company of
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, U.S. in the early 20th century.
The marimbaphone had either shallow steel or wooden bars arranged chromatically with a tube resonator under each bar. Its
timbre
In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and musica ...
was similar to the
celesta
The celesta or celeste , also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five- octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box ...
, and it was used mainly by marimba bands and as a solo instrument by stage artists.
In addition to being played with mallets in the conventional way (as in the playing of a marimba or
vibraphone
The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...
), the marimbaphone was designed so that its bars could be rotated from a horizontal position to a vertical position, allowing them to more easily be played with a bow. To further facilitate bowing, the ends of its bars were concave rather than flat. A single marimbaphone could be played by more than one performer, allowing both techniques to be used simultaneously.
Although the instrument has been comparatively little used in art music (
Percy Grainger
Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...
was one of only a few composers ever to call for it), the name is found in many scores where the ordinary
marimba
The marimba () is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the timbre ...
is meant.
Steel marimba
Also invented by Deagan was the steel marimba, a variation on the steel marimbaphone design that was intended to be played strictly with mallets and not bowed. Both of these instruments were superseded by the invention of the vibraphone in 1927.
See also
*
Xylorimba
The xylorimba (sometimes referred to as xylo-marimba or marimba-xylophone) is a pitched percussion instrument similar to an extended-range xylophone with a range identical to some 5-octave celestas or 5-octave marimbas, though typically an octave ...
*
Tuned percussion
A pitched percussion instrument (also known as a melodic or tuned percussion instrument) is a percussion instrument used to produce musical notes of one or more pitches, as opposed to an unpitched percussion instrument which is used to produce ...
References
External links
Deagan Steel Marimbaphone exhibitfrom Percussive Arts Society Museum site
Keyboard percussion instruments
{{Mallet-stub