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 [2989]Marimba Mallets (280 reads) |
2003-06-19 00:48:35 |
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Thomas Alexander
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Hi,
I'd just like to throw in a couple of things to this discussion. The issue of mallets for me has become an interesting choice. Often the sounds of a mallet will depend on the marimba you are playing upon, and this is for multifaceted reasons, but consider starting your search with mallets which have been designed with an artist who plays on the instrument you own, or will be performing on at school.
I play using an interpretation of the Steven's Technique, and so I use the ridged shaft for 4 mallet playing, although I have used some of Keiko Abe's mallets for two mallet work which required that kind of weight.
Some makers offer a line in both shaft types. Nancy Zeltsman's line is an example....
Enjoy Malletech's Concerto Series for weight and full tone on my instrument, and Michael Burritt's range also. I enjoyed the Van Sice mallets on the Adams marimbas, but they really don't work on my instrument, so I tend not to use them too often anymore.
My last point is about using vibes mallets on marimba. The often heard complaint about this is that the mallets have a strong tone (which we all enjoy hearing) but they do not change tone and have the ability to cut through on the marimba. That's the mistake.... The MB vibes mallets (for example) are designed to cope with the nature of a vibraphone bar, which is more volatile than a wooden marimba bar. To maintain the solid tone of the vibe bar the mallet promotes the dark fundamental with the choice of rubber core. A marimba mallet often has a lighter plastic core with a firm rubber band around it so as to allow for some of the lighter harmonics to come through without creating the sudden jump to a "two tone" type cracking sound. A vibes mallet is designed to sort of "limit" the level of brightness at high impact.
Some marimba mallets do however promote the solid rubber core as a "sound choice", but these cores are pick with the wooden bar in mind and the choice of yarn is selected to reduce that contact "tick". You may notice that the "tick" element of the vibes is of a different nature to that of the marimba. I mostly dislike the sound of vibes mallets on marimba because of the contact noise, which is not aided by the often small head size.
But at the end of the day, experimentation is essential.
TA
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[2965]I'm new to marimba, and I need some basic advice <Doug>
