metallophone

Saron, metallophone with six or seven bronze keys placed on a wooden frame, from Java, Indonesia.

metallophone, any percussion instrument consisting of a series of struck metal bars (compare xylophone, with struck wooden bars). Examples include the saron and gender of the Indonesian gamelan orchestra and the Western glockenspiel, vibraphone, and (with a keyboard) celesta.

China had such instruments by the 7th century. Metallophones had reached northern Europe from Asia by about the second half of the 17th century. There they were originally used as practice instruments but were accepted as performance instruments in the 18th century. In the 20th century, the music-education methods of Carl Orff added metallophones to many classrooms around the world.