What is some history on the xylophone?

Answer 1

The xylophone received its name from the Greek word "xylon", meaning "wood", and the word "phone", meaning "sound". Historically, the xylophone originated in southeast Asia and came to Africa c. 500 AD. 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 plainest xylophones were a pair of bars that lay across the player's legs. More complex instruments were developed that were mounted on a frame. It developed further as part of the Indonesian gamelan, or percussion orchestra. From there, the xylophone spread throughout Africa and Europe. The xylophone was probably a frequent member of early jazz bands in the 1920s and 1930s. As time passed, the xylophone was used less and less in jazz and popular music, while the vibraphone gained in popularity.

Early music for the xylophone was traditional and conceded down from teacher to student. A European form of the xylophone first recognized 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, adding extra rows of bars modified this folk instrument; four rows became customary. 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 ventures 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 instrument.

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-Alex Malone

P.S The guy who answered this before was really stupid.