The Mechanical Workings of The Marimba

This blog is based on a music project i recently completed. It's basically abouth the Mechanical Workings of The Marimba.

The way a marimba works is by hitting the wooden bar with a mallet, which makes the sound travel through the pipes which are directly below the marimba. These pipes make the sound resonate. The different sized wooden bars and tubes make the different pitches and sounds. This is a basic way of understanding how a marimba works. Let's add more detail.

What do you call the hammers or sticks you play the marimba with and why are the heads different colurs?                                                            

They are called mallets of course. Mallets are always different colours because it helps to distinguish the varying hardness. Softer mallets in general are usually used for lower notes on the marimba (bass) and harder mallets are usually suitable to use for higher notes (piccolo). Depending on how much force you put in hitting the bars with the mallets affect how Forte or Piano you want your sound to be.

But what makes the actual sound? 

The marimba is typically either made out of wood or synthetic material, rosewood which is the most used. The bars are much wider and longer at the lowest pitched notes and gradually get narrower and shorter as the notes get higher. Marimba bars make their fullest sound when they are stuck just off centre, whereas hitting the bar at the centre produces a more articulated note. On chromatic marimbas the sharps and flats can be played on the space between the front edge of the bars as well as on its node (the place where the string goes through the bar). This creates a very weak tone which is only used when the player/composer is looking for a muted sound from the marimba. The hitting of these bars with the mallet creates the bars to vigourously vibrate. So now we know that the vibration of the bars emit sound.

What about Resonators?

Resonators are parts of the marimba which help it to produce somewhat of a rich sound. These are metal tubes (made of aluminium) that hang underneath each bar. The lengths of the resonators differ when it comes to the sound that the bar produces. Vibrations from the bars resonate as they pass through the tubes. This helps to increase the tone in the same way a guitar or cello works. The marimba bars are placed on a stand which usually has two legs holding it upright stably. Therefore you could say that the marimba has a head (mallets), body (bars) and legs (resonators and legs).

 

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Posted: February 21st 2012 01:18