The knock of the dice: Interesting facts about the xylophone

Percussion instruments are not always big and bulky. The xylophone, featured in this material, is quite miniature. There are wooden plates or bars on the body of this instrument - the sound is achieved by striking them with a special stick. Depending on the style of playing, the coloring of the sound changes - the xylophone can sound menacing, but it can also give light, joyful sounds.

Interesting facts about the xylophone:

▪︎ French composer Saint-Saëns, after being inspired by the engravings of the 15th-century German artist H. Holbein, wrote a symphonic poem, Dances of Death. At the premiere performance of this work, an overly impressionable listener got cold feet, frightened as he realistically imagined a skeleton dancing to the rattle of his own bones. The composer achieved this frightening effect with sharp, jerky stabs on the instrument's wooden plates;

▪︎ The xylophone is commonly used in the making of films-the instrument is very appropriate in the scoring of horror films;

▪▪ It is the xylophone, which was used in the song of the squirrel gnawing of the emerald-golden nuts in The Tale of Tsar Saltan. Its sounds mimic the snapping of nutshells.

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▪︎ In the 1940s, the xylophone was often used by jazz performers. This instrument was later replaced by the vibraphone;

▪︎ In some African countries, the xylophone is not used for musical purposes but by locals to scare away birds and other garden pests;

▪︎ In musical circles, the sticks tapped on the xylophone have their own very cute name, "goat's feet.