Xylorimba

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The xylorimba (sometimes known as the xylo-marimba or marimba-xylophone) is a pitched percussion musical instrument which is a xylophone with an extended range (and not a combination of the xylophone and the marimba, although the name might imply that).

It consists of a series of wooden bars laid out like a piano keyboard, and it combines the range of the two, usually spanning four octaves from the C one octave below middle C to the C three octaves above middle C. Its music is written in both the treble and bass clefs.

The instrument has been used in a number of 20th century classical works, including Alban Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces (1915, revised 1929), Pierre Boulez' Le marteau sans maître (1955) and works by Olivier Messiaen.