Stick percussion idiophones

The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African and Asian instruments, diatonic in many western children's instruments, or chromatic for orchestral use.

idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family

The marimba ( ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars that are struck by mallets. Below each bar is a resonator pipe that amplifies particular harmonics of its sound. Compared to the xylophone, the marimba has a lower range. Typically, the bars of a marimba are arranged chromatically, like the keys of a piano. The marimba is a type of idiophone.

The balafon (pronounced , or, by analogy with xylophone etc., ) is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé, Bwaba Bobo, Senoufo and Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch of the Mandinka ethnic group, but is now found across West Africa from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali. Its common name, balafon, is likely a European coinage combining its Mandinka name bála () with the word fóo (nyáa) () 'to say / method of saying' or the Greek root phono.

thumb|right|Xylorimba, range C3-C8

thumb|50px|right The dhantal (dandtal) is a long steel rod based percussion instrument (sounding similar to the triangle), which was adapted from the iron "bows" which yoked the oxen that pulled the carts on the estates in Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, other parts of the Caribbean, and Fiji. The original beater (which is called a kartaal/taali) was an actual horseshoe, a shape which is still retained in the modern dhantal's beater. The top of the dhantal may be blunt or tapered to a fine point to allow for greater resonance, and its end is shaped into a circle that rests on the ground