Not much to say about the marimba except it’s Guatemala’s national instrument. But, did you know the chromatic marimba was developed in Guatemala? If not, read on…
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys (similar to a piano) to aid the performer both visually and physically. This instrument is a type of xylophone, but with broader and lower tonal range and resonators.
The chromatic marimba was developed in Guatemala[1] from the diatonic marimba, an instrument whose ancestor was a type of balafon that African slaves built in Central America… continue reading at Wikipedia.
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Now I´m gonna be obnoxious here, and remind you that the chromatic marimba was invented by Sebastián Hurtado from, you guessed it, Xela! The Hurtado Hermanos come from a long line of marimba musicians, as do the Bethancourts.