vibraphone and glockenspiel

The Vibraphone
The vibraphone is a descendent of the African xylophone, of the marimba found in Guatemala and Mexico and of instruments of the gamelan orchestra found in Bali and Java.


圖片參考：http://www.jazzvibe.com/vibraphone/vibm48sm.gif
It was invented in the U.S. toward the beginning of the 1900's and was popularized by the great jazz musicians Lionel Hampton (with clarinetist Benny Goodman) and Milt Jackson of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Some other notable vibraphonists are Gary Burton (who popularized the use of playing with four mallets), Cal Tjader (known for playing Latin music), and Bobby Hutcherson.


圖片參考：http://www.jazzvibe.com/vibraphone/vibm75sm.gif
The bars of the instrument are struck by mallets of varying hardnesses.The vibraphone looks similar to a xylophone and a marimba. Thedifference is that the bars of both the xylophone and marimba are made wood. In general terms, the xylophone is a soprano or high register marimba (the difference being in the tuning and timbre). The bars of a vibraphone are made of metal. The vibraphone also has a sustain pedal like a piano that when depressed allows the notes to ring until the pedal is lifted again. The vibraphone originally got its name because it has a motor that turns metal discs, called pulsators, located under the bars at the openings of the resonators or tubes. The rotation of the pulsators gives a vibrato sound to the instrument. Without this motor the vibraphone could just as easily be called a metalophone because of it's metal bars.
Glockenspiel, Percussion Instrument


With a name that means, "the hitting of one body against another," instruments in the percussion family are played by being struck, shaken, or scraped. In the orchestra, the percussion section provides a variety of rhythms, textures and tone colors. Percussion instruments are classified as tuned or untuned. Tuned instruments play specific pitches or notes, just like the woodwind, brass and string instruments. Untuned instruments produce a sound with an indefinite pitch, like the sound of a hand knocking on a door. The percussion instruments are an international family, with ancestors from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe representing musical styles from many different cultures.
Also called orchestra bells, the glockenspiel resembles a small xylophone, but it is made of steel bars. The glockenspiel is typically played with wooden or plastic mallets, producing a high tuned sound that is bright and penetrating. The name glockenspiel comes from the German language and means "to play the bells."

Mozart made famous use of the glockenspiel in The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), where it is a magic instrument for the comic bird-catcher Papageno. It is now a recognised if sparingly used instrument in the percussion section of the modern orchestra.


2007-05-09 19:58:31 補充：
Of course they are NOT the same although both of them are percussion instruments.