Marimba

On Saturday evening I attended a marimba concert in Fushimi. What an unusual instrument. The soloist used 4 mallets, 2 in each hand. Experimentally sounding music, almost alien-like at first. Later, accompanied by piano and violin the girl played more familiar arrangements and more classical in nature. I was surprised to find marimaba bars are made of rosewood and a large marimba plays 5 octaves of music. Researching Wikipedia, I read that though similar, the xylophone is pitched an octave higher than the marimba and is played with harder mallets. Marimba is an African word and it is thought this percussion instrument originated in Africa. In the early 1960's Keiko Abe (famous Japanese marimba player) began popularizing marimba in Japan with her many concerts, radio and TV programs.