page_title: Vibraphone
section_title: Four-mallet style
hierarchical_section_title: Vibraphone / Technique / Four-mallet style
caption_attribution_description: Vibraphonist Gary Burton and guitarist Julian Lage
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  The vibraphone resembles the now obsolete marimbaphone and steel marimba of which it superseded.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 four-mallet vibraphone style is multi-linear, like a piano. "Thinking like a pianist, arranger, and orchestrator, the vibist approaches the instrument like a piano and focuses on a multi-linear way of playing." In jazz groups, four-mallet vibraphonists are often considered part of the rhythm section, typically substituting for piano or guitar and providing accompaniment for other soloists in addition to soloing themselves. Furthermore, the four-mallet style has led to a significant body of unaccompanied solo vibes playing. One notable example is Gary Burton’s performance of "Chega de Saudade (No More Blues)" from his Grammy-winning 1971 album "Alone at Last".
  Although some early vibes players made use of four mallets, notably Red Norvo, Adrian Rollini, and sometimes Lionel Hampton, the fully pianistic four-mallet approach is almost entirely the creation of Burton. Many of the key techniques of the four-mallet style, such as multi-linear playing and the advanced dampening techniques described below, are easily applied to playing with two mallets and some modern two-mallet players have adapted these devices to their playing, somewhat blurring the distinctions between modern two- and four-mallet players.
  The most popular four-mallet grip for vibraphone is the Burton grip, named for Gary Burton. One mallet is held between the thumb and index finger and the other is held between the index and middle fingers. The shafts cross in the middle of the palm and extend past the heel of the hand. For wide intervals, the thumb often moves in between the two mallets, and the inside mallet is held in the crook of the fingers.
  Also popular is the Stevens grip, named for marimbist Leigh Howard Stevens. Many other grips are in use, some variations on the Burton or Stevens, others idiosyncratic creations of individual vibes players. One common variation of the Burton grip places the outside mallet between the middle and ring fingers instead of between the index and middle.
  Four-mallet vibists usually play scalar linear passages much the same as two-mallet players, using one mallet from each hand (outside right and inside left for Burton grip), except that four-mallet players tend to make more use of double strokes, not only to avoid crossing hands, but also to minimize motion between the two bar rows. For example, an ascending E flat major scale could be played L-R-R-L-L-R-R-L, keeping the left hand on the "black" bars and the right hand on the "white". For linear passages with leaps, all four mallets are often used sequentially.
  Pedaling techniques are at least as important for the four-mallet vibist as for two-mallet players, but the all-or-nothing dampening system of the pedal/pad presents many obstacles to multi-linear playing, since each line normally has its own dampening requirements independent of the other lines. To overcome this, four-mallet players use a set of dampening techniques referred to as "mallet dampening", in addition to the pedaling techniques used by two-mallet players. The mallet dampening techniques "are to the vibist as garlic and fresh basil are to the Northern Italian chef" and contribute significantly to expressive four-mallet playing.
  Mallet dampening includes "dead strokes", where a player strikes a bar and then, instead of drawing the mallet back, directly presses the head of the mallet onto the bar, causing the ringing to immediately stop. This produces a fairly distinctive "choked" sound, and dead strokes are often used just for that particular sound in addition to the dampening aspects.
  In hand-to-hand dampening, the vibist plays a note with one mallet, while simultaneously pressing another mallet onto a previously ringing bar. Usually the dampening mallet and the striking mallet are held in different hands, but advanced players can, in some circumstances, use two mallets from the same hand. This is the most powerful of the mallet dampening techniques, as it can be used to dampen any note on the instrument while simultaneously striking any other note.
  Slide dampening can be used to dampen a note that is
caption: Vibraphonist Gary Burton and guitarist Julian Lage. Note Burton's four-mallet grip.
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