A metallophone is a musical instrument made of tuned metal bars that you strike with mallets to produce clear, ringing notes. Picture a xylophone, but instead of wooden bars, imagine bars made of metal, usually aluminum or steel. Each bar is a different length, and when you tap it, it rings out a specific pitch.

The most familiar metallophone to many people is the glockenspiel, which produces bright, tinkling notes you often hear in orchestras or marching bands. Another common metallophone is the vibraphone, which jazz musicians love for its warm, shimmering sound (it has small fans under each bar that make the notes vibrate). In Indonesian gamelan orchestras, several types of metallophones create intricate, layered melodies that sound completely different from Western instruments.

Metallophones belong to the percussion family of instruments because you create sound by striking them. The metal bars are carefully shaped and tuned so each one produces exactly the right note. Unlike a xylophone's dry, woody sound, metallophones ring clearly and sustain longer, giving them that distinctive metallic shimmer that can sound magical, mysterious, or cheerful, depending on how they're played.