Marimba Virtual

The marimba's roots are ancient, extending to early human instincts to strike wood, stone and metal slabs and objects that produced musical tones. These practices existed in various forms in the cultures of Africa, Latin America and Asia and are all, in some sense, forerunners of the modern marimba.

The first, crude beginnings of the marimba were several slabs of wood placed on sticks set over a hole in the ground which served as a resonating chamber. Later, slabs of wood were suspended over large gourds or wooden boxes which served to enhance the tone.

Sources differ on the specific area of the world in which the marimba originated; however, the frontrunners in this debate are Africa and the highlands of Guatemala. It is interesting to note that symbolic and functional uses of the African marimba are very much integrated into their culture. In Guatemala and Mexico, the marimba is the national instrument; no party is complete without marimba music.

The marimba that I play today is quite different than the original folk instruments. The development of the modern marimba in the northern hemisphere can be traced to the Central American marimba builders, notably Sebastian Hurtado, who developed a chromatic arrangement of the bars laid out like the piano keyboard during the 1890s. In 1880, John Calhoun Deagan founded the first U.S. company to manufacture percussion instruments, and built the first real precursor to my marimba, with metal resonators, around the 1920s.