RE:Vibraphone/xylophone/marimba in Klezmer music

[Jeremy Bloom <jeremyb...>]

A while ago I saw a ukrainian guy play a vibraphone that was arranged EXACTLY 
like a tsimbaly. It was very cool. he even used tsimbal mallets. 

if you are thinking about "going backwards and learning tsimbal" and you want 
that vibraphone feel it may be worthwile to investigate this option



> Sorry for the delayed posting ... 
> 
> The strawFidl is the precursor to the modern xylophone. It was basically a
> bunch of xylophone bars, less the resonators and suspension sitting on a bed 
> of
> straw. Therefore, the sound was probably pretty muffled. Most probably would
> not have been marimba, they weren't that popular at the time. And the stuff
> that was popular was vaudeville and marimba orchestra. (as a cool aside, check
> out these pics from the 1933 worlds fair marimba orchestra
> http://www.usma.edu/band/archives/pfpg1.htm) 
> 
> It would make sense that tsimbl players would have moved over to xylophone.
> They were cheap and easy to get ahold of -- relatively. Additionally, several
> countries have xylophones set up to play certain modes and scales like the
> German xylophone, where the bars are set up in sort of a trapezoid. This is in
> contrast to the piano-like chromatic layout we use now. Probably wouldn't be
> too hard to make the switch. 
> 
> Interestingly, I'm currently going the opposite direction of my predecessors.
> After playing classical persussion and drumset for a while, I got into playing
> klezmer xylophone. Some stuff actually works pretty nicely -- especially fast
> stuff like quick accordian tunes and not surprisingly some tsimbl music.  But
> now Im going backwards and learning tsibml ...
> 
> Funny how these things work out. 
> 
> -jonathan
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- Vladimir Liberman <vovka0 (at) gis(dot)net> wrote:
> > I Wonder---
> > 
> > Maybe these instruments are an homage to the famous 19th century Gusikov's
> > strawFidl (bottles wrapped in straw) that Felix Mendelsohn heard on his
> > travels to Russia and became so enamored of.. I wonder what the strawfidl
> > sounded like..
> > Vlad Liberman
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> =====
> Jonathan Simon
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