The Marimba

But it's so much more than THAT! The marimba is the instrument that hooked me on percussion in the first place. In sixth grade percussion class (those Texans, they know what they're doing with school music...), the first and second chair percussionists got to practice scales and such on the marimba. Third chair got the xylophone. Fourth, fifth, and sixth...the crummy bell sets we got when we signed up for percussion. They sounded awful then and mine still sounds awful today. Needless to say, the marimba sounded so much better, and I worked my butt off to get to first or second chair whenever I could, so I could enjoy playing that lovely instrument.

The marimba pictured above is the traditional marimba seen in the majority of Western music, varying in range from four octaves to five octaves (Most people begin study on a four and one-third octave instrument, low A to high C). However, the marimba and other similar instruments (such at the Xylophone, etc.) have origins in African and South American music. The picture to the right shows a traditional South American marimba (note the gourds used as resonators), and the one below shows a small African marimba.

If you'd like to know more about the marimba, check out this page from a website owned by Nancy Zeltsman, a well-known marimbist:
Nancy Zeltsman's Guide to the Marimba