If you’ve ever wanted to pluck out some bright, percussive melody lines than this virtual xylophone should be right up your street. Use your mouse to click wooden bars or tap away at your computer keyboard. The xylophone were built to be an easy and responsive instrument. Whether you’re a student practicing scales or a musician needing a fast sound source, this one work for you.
It consist of 13 bars from middle C through to the A above it. That is a full octave plus a fifth which is enough for most exercises and simple tunes. On a regular classroom xylophone, the notes is ordered from the left side (lowest note) to the right side (highest note). Red text indicate where each of the C notes appear for easy reference on the instrument.
How to Use This Virtual Xylophone
Alternatively, if you have keyboard then the keys are assigned to letters and numbers towards the bottom of your layout. To sound out first nine bars hit the number buttons starting at one through to nine. The tenth bar comes under the zero button, and J, K and L covers the last three higher notes. As you can see, this keeps your fingers close together so playing scales is easy without having to move your hand around the board.
To add to the pleasure of playing this instrument there are a few controls below. There’s a volume slider that you can use to control the overall level of main output. This might be something you’d like to do when playing in a quiet setting. You might also want to make sure the xylophone blend with any other sound you’re using.
Next, there’s a button called Play Twinkle. Clicking here play a demo version of this popular nursery rhyme. As each bar plays, they’ll light up so you can see the pattern and rhythm. It’s a cool example of how timing works on the xylophone without having to try it yourself first.
To get a bit more structure in your practice, press the Scale run button. This will automatically play all the notes on the scale sweeping up then back down through the range. You can also hear complete tonal spectrum of the virtual bars and really visualize how the pitch rise and falls.
To make things less cramped if you find that it is, press the Fullscreen button and this expand the widget to fill your monitor. This allows for a clearer view of the bars. This is useful when practicing hitting individual notes as you drag mouse over the instrument.
As you drag your mouse across the bars they produce a smooth run of notes. If you want to use the tremolo effect, just press down on one of the bars. It will automatically start to bounce around triggering a sustained shimmering sound. This sounds as though you are striking the note realy fast with your mallet hand. This is another xylophone performance trick that gives a textural quality to your playing. Combined with dragging, this can be used to move up the scale while keeping a continuous roll. This makes it easier to practice smooth changes from register to register.
You can click the How to play button anytime if you need a reminder of how the keys correspond to bars. A helpful panel open containing a summary of keyboard shortcuts and controls. When not in use, the help panel keep the interface clean but is there whenever required. Pressing the question mark key on your keyboard will also switch it on/off as does the How to play button.
To quickly avoid clicking the button, you can use the space bar to play the scale run through. Play through some of these demo patterns to hear how it plays best. Note how the sound attack in a bright sharp manner that is typical of wooden xylophones. Try out the tremolo effect on the top end notes. They do have a tendency to ring more effectivey. The sound spread in stereo around your speaker, giving your playing a sense of space. The higher notes sits on the right, while the lower ones feel anchored on the left.
There’s no previous experience necessary to begin creating music with it. You’ll see the bars light up in accent colors when they’re hit, which visually points you through what to play next. This instant feedback allow you to develop an awareness that what you do here makes a difference to what happens there.
It’s also an instrument you can warm up your fingers on or compose a brief tune with. To begin, click on the red C bars as a starting point, then branch out from there to surrounding notes. Explore how far this virtual xylophone reaches and enjoy its clean percussive tone.