Pitched "Mallet" Percussion

Pitched, or mallet percussion instruments have many differently tuned wooden or metal bars arranged like a piano keyboard, generally covering about 3.5 octaves. They are sounded by beating the bars with mallets, with between one and three pair of mallets in the player’s hands at once, which allows chords to be produced. A variety of sounds can be made from each instrument by using different mallets, hard or soft.

Glockenspiel

​The Glockenspiel's bars are made metal plates or tubes. A pair of hard, mallets, with of plastic or metal heads are used to strike the bars, which give a very pure, bell-like sound.

Xylophone

The Xylophone consists of hard wooden bars, which gives a bright and penetrating sound when played with hard beaters, or more mellow with soft beaters.
Fact: The great Romantic German composer Felix Mendelssohn stated that the xylophone was "the most perfect instrument".

Marimba

​The marimba has wooden keys like they xylophone, but made with softer wood, which gives it a softer, richer timbre. It also has a wider note range of up to five octaves. The mallets heads can be wooden or rubber or wrapped in yarn, to give different effects.

Vibraphone

​The vibraphone has metal bars like the glockenspiel, but is lower pitched. It produces a haunting sound due to resonating lids in the tubes underneath that are opened and closed by an electric motor, creating a vibrating effect. The bars are hit with rubber or yarn-covered mallets.

Tubular Bells

​Tubular bells are vertically hung metal tubes of steel or brass played with wooden, plastic or rubber mallets, and are often used to simulate the sound of church bells.