Vibraphone Vibraphone The vibraphone (also known as the vibraharp or simply the vibes) is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family. It consists of tuned metal bars, and is usually played by holding two or four soft mallets and striking the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a "vibraphonist" or "vibraharpist". The vibraphone resembles the xylophone, marimba, and glockenspiel, one of the main differences between it and these instruments being that each bar is paired with a resonator tube that has a motor-driven butterfly valve at its upper end. The valves are mounted
Kendall Band for Johannes Kepler, a 17th-century German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. This instrument features a 125-pound, 55-inch, metal ring that plays an F♯ when struck. This note creates a harmonic perfect fifth with the tones sounded by "Pythagoras". The ring plays this note when a handle on either subway platform is manipulated, which in turn ratchets a hammer upward until it falls and strikes the ring. After the ring is struck, it will continue to hum for five minutes. The "Galileo" instrument is a large metal sheet the size of a barn door, and is named for Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer,