Play Marimba Online

Tap the rosewood bars to play a warm, resonant marimba tone. Choose 8 or 15 bars, toggle reverb, record your screen, and watch the soft mallets strike. Works on mobile and desktop — no download or app needed.

Reverb
🔊

💻 Keyboard: A S D F G H J K — left to right

Screen Recording

Record your performance and download it as a WebM video.

Ready to record screen.

💡 Tip: Turn Reverb On to hear the full, concert-hall warmth of the marimba resonators. The long sustain works beautifully with slow, flowing melodies.

✅ How to Use

  1. Tap any bar to play it. On desktop, use the keyboard keys shown on each bar.
  2. Switch between 8 bars (one octave, beginner) and 15 bars (two octaves, full range).
  3. Toggle Reverb On to add a warm concert-hall ambience — Off for a drier, more intimate sound.
  4. Press Record, play a melody, press Stop — then Play to loop it continuously.

About the Marimba

The marimba is a large percussion instrument in the xylophone family, distinguished by its warm, full, and deeply resonant tone. Like the xylophone, it consists of wooden bars arranged in the layout of a piano keyboard and played with mallets. However, the marimba's character is fundamentally different: each bar is tuned with an arch cut into its underside to lower specific overtones, and a hollow metal resonator tube hangs beneath each bar to amplify the fundamental frequency and extend the note's sustain. The mallets used for marimba are wrapped in soft yarn or cord, producing a gentle attack that blends beautifully with the instrument's natural resonance.

The marimba's origins are traced to sub-Saharan Africa, where gourd-resonated log xylophones have been played for centuries. African slaves brought the instrument to Central America, where it took root most deeply in Guatemala and Mexico. The modern orchestral marimba — with its wide range of four to five octaves, large resonators, and chromatic layout — was developed in the early 20th century, notably by American maker John Calhoun Deagan and the Guatemalan musician Sebastián Hurtado. Today, Guatemala considers the marimba its national instrument.

In Western classical music, the marimba gained serious recognition from the mid-20th century onward. It now features prominently as both an orchestral percussion instrument and a solo concert instrument, with a growing repertoire of concertos and chamber works. Composers such as Ney Rosauro, Emmanuel Séjourné, and Steve Reich have written major works for it. In jazz and contemporary music, vibraphonists often double on marimba, drawn to its warmer, woodier character compared to the metallic vibraphone.

This virtual marimba uses a Web Audio API synthesis model tuned to recreate the essential character of the instrument: a soft attack, a warm fundamental with a subdued second partial, and a long, resonant decay that fades naturally over two to three seconds. The visible resonator tubes beneath the bars are a visual reminder of what makes the marimba sound so different from the xylophone.

How the Sound Is Made

Each bar is synthesised using three layered components. The fundamental sine oscillator carries most of the weight — it has a soft six-millisecond attack and decays slowly over nearly two and a half seconds, replicating the long sustain of a real rosewood bar over a full metal resonator. A second oscillator at roughly twice the fundamental frequency adds the warm body of the sound but decays within half a second, leaving only the pure fundamental ringing. A brief low-level noise burst at the moment of impact recreates the soft thud of a yarn-wrapped mallet.

The optional reverb is a convolution reverb built from a synthetic impulse response, adding a concert-hall room sound without requiring a large audio file. The screen recorder captures note timings with millisecond accuracy and replays them continuously until stopped.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a marimba?

A marimba is a percussion instrument with wooden bars arranged like a piano keyboard. Hollow metal resonator tubes beneath each bar amplify the sound and give the instrument its characteristic warm, sustained tone. It is played with soft yarn-wrapped mallets.

How is a marimba different from a xylophone?

Both use wooden bars struck with mallets, but a xylophone has a bright, sharp tone with a fast decay, while a marimba has a warm, resonant sound with a long sustain. The marimba has resonator tubes under each bar and is played with softer mallets. Try the Virtual Xylophone side-by-side to hear the difference.

What do the solfège names mean?

Solfège names (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti) are the Western musical equivalent of note names (C, D, E, F, G, A, B). The mapping uses C as Do — the same relative system used in Western music education.

Why do the bars get smaller from left to right?

On a real marimba, lower notes have longer, wider bars. This virtual instrument mirrors that layout — the leftmost bar is the lowest note (C4) and the rightmost is the highest. The metal resonator tubes also get shorter as the pitch rises.

Can I use a computer keyboard?

Yes — keyboard keys are shown on each bar. For 8 bars: A S D F G H J K. For 15 bars the layout extends: A–L for the lower octave, Q–Y for the upper octave.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes — the layout scales to your screen width. For 15 bars on a phone, rotating to landscape gives more comfortable bar widths and larger tap targets.

How long can I record?

Record until you stop sharing or press Stop Recording. The screen recorder saves your performance as a WebM video for download.

Bar Reference — C Major Scale

Bar Note Solfège (C=Do) Octave Key (8-bar)
1 C Do 4 A
2 D Re 4 S
3 E Mi 4 D
4 F Fa 4 F
5 G Sol 4 G
6 A La 4 H
7 B Ti 4 J
8 C Do 5 K

References & Notes

This is a simulation tool for learning and entertainment.

Related Instruments