page_title: Vibraphone
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Vibraphone / History
caption_attribution_description: Former headquarters of J. C. Deagan, Inc.
context_page_description: The vibraphone 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, vibraharpist, or vibist.
  The vibraphone resembles the now obsolete marimbaphone and steel marimba of which it superseded. One of the main differences between the vibraphone and other keyboard percussion instruments is that each bar suspends over a resonator tube with a motor-driven butterfly valve at the top. The valves connect together on a common axel, which produces a tremolo or vibrato effect while the motor rotates the axle. The vibraphone also has a sustain pedal similar to a piano. With the pedal up, the bars produce a muted sound. With the pedal down, the bars sustain for several seconds, or until muted with the pedal.
  The vibraphone is commonly used in jazz music, in which it often plays a featured role and was a defining element of the sound of mid-20th-century "Tiki lounge" exotica, as popularized by Arthur Lyman.
context_section_description: The first musical instrument called "vibraphone" was marketed by the Leedy Manufacturing Company in the United States in 1921.  However, this instrument differed in significant details from the instrument now called the vibraphone. The Leedy vibraphone achieved a degree of popularity after it was used in the novelty recordings of "Aloha 'Oe" and "Gypsy Love Song" by vaudeville performer Louis Frank Chiha.
  This popularity led J.C. Deagan, Inc. in 1927 to ask its Chief Tuner, Henry Schluter, to develop a similar instrument. However, instead of just copying the Leedy design, Schluter introduced several significant improvements: making the bars from aluminum instead of steel for a more "mellow" basic tone; adjustments to the dimensions and tuning of the bars to eliminate the dissonant harmonics in the Leedy design (further mellowing the tone); and the introduction of a foot-controlled damper bar allowing musicians to play it with more expression. Schluter's design was more popular than the Leedy design and has become the template for all instruments now called vibraphone.
  However, when Deagan began marketing Schluter's instrument in 1928, they called it the vibraharp. The name derived from similar aluminum bars that were mounted vertically and operated from the "harp" stop on a theatre organ. Since Deagan trademarked the name, others were obliged to use the earlier "vibraphone" for their instruments incorporating the newer design.
  The name confusion continues, even to the present, but over time vibraphone became significantly more popular than vibraharp. By 1974, the Directory of the D.C. Federation of Musicians listed 39 vibraphone players and 3 vibraharp players.
  The initial purpose of the vibraphone was to add to the large arsenal of percussion sounds used by vaudeville orchestras for novelty effects. This use was quickly overwhelmed in the 1930s by its development as a jazz instrument. As of 2020, it retains its use as a jazz instrument and is also established as a major keyboard percussion instrument, often used for solos, in chamber ensembles, and in modern orchestral compositions.
  The first instance of the vibraphone being used in popular music can be attributed to jazz drum Paul Barbarin. Although brief, Barbarin's vibraphone playing can be heard Louis Armstrong performance of "Rockin' Chair", recorded December 13, 1929, approximately 2 minutes in. 
  The use of the vibraphone as a solo instrument, however, would be popularized by Lionel Hampton, a jazz drummer from from California. At one recording session with bandleader Louis Armstrong, Hampton was asked to play a vibraphone that had been left behind. This resulted in the recording of the song "Memories of You" in 1930, a song often considered to be the first instance of an improvised vibraphone solo. 
  The first classical composer to use the vibraphone was Alban Berg, who used it prominently in his opera Lulu in 1935. While the vibraphone has not been quite as extensively in the realm of classical music, it can often be heard used in theatre or film music, such as in Bernstein's West Side Story.
caption: Former headquarters of J.C. Deagan, Inc. in Chicago, where Henry Schluter invented the vibraphone. Now (2008) home to Century Mallet Instrument Service.
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