The marimbaphone (not to be confused with the similarly named
marimba) is an obsolete tuned percussion instrument, developed by the
J.C. Deagan Company
J. C. Deagan, Inc. is a former musical instrument manufacturing company that developed and produced instruments from the late 19th- to mid-20th century. It was founded in 1880 by John Calhoun Deagan and initially manufactured glockenspiels. It was ...
of
Chicago, Illinois, 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 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 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 was one of only a few composers ever to call for it), the name is found in many scores where the ordinary
marimba 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 Both of these instruments were superseded by the invention of the vibraphone in 1927.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
*
Tuned percussion
References
External links
Deagan Steel Marimbaphone exhibitfrom Percussive Arts Society Museum site
Keyboard percussion instruments
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