Xylophone vs. Vibraphone

Main Difference

The main difference between Xylophone and Vibraphone is that the Xylophone is a musical instrument of the family of mallets and Vibraphone is a musical instrument.

• Xylophone

  The xylophone (from the Greek words ξύλον—xylon, “wood” + φωνή—phōnē, “sound, voice”, meaning “wooden sound”) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African and Asian instruments, diatonic in many western children’s instruments, or chromatic for orchestral use.

  The term xylophone may be used generally, to include all such instruments such as the marimba, balafon and even the semantron. However, in the orchestra, the term xylophone refers specifically to a chromatic instrument of somewhat higher pitch range and drier timbre than the marimba, and these two instruments should not be confused.

  The term is also popularly used to refer to similar instruments of the lithophone and metallophone types. For example, the Pixiphone and many similar toys described by the makers as xylophones have bars of metal rather than of wood, and so are in organology regarded as glockenspiels rather than as xylophones. The metal bars found on a glockenspiel generally produce higher high-pitched tones than a xylophone’s wooden bars.

• Vibraphone

  The vibraphone is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family. It consists of tuned metal bars, and is usually played by holding two or four soft mallets and striking the bars. People who play the vibraphone are called vibraphonists or vibraharpists.

  The vibraphone resembles any keyboard instrument. One of the main differences between the vibraphone and other mallet instruments is that each bar suspends over a resonator tube with a motor-driven butterfly valve at the top. The valves connect together on a common axle, which produces a tremolo or vibrato effect while the motor rotates the axle. The vibraphone also has a sustain pedal similar to a piano. With the pedal up, the bars produce a muted sound. With the pedal down, the bars sustain for several seconds, or until muted with the pedal.

  The vibraphone is commonly used in jazz music, in which it often plays a featured role and was a defining element of the sound of mid-20th-century “Tiki lounge” exotica, as popularized by Arthur Lyman. It is the second most popular solo keyboard percussion instrument in classical music, after the marimba, and is part of the standard college-level percussion performance education. It is a standard instrument in the modern percussion section for orchestras and concert bands.