The Whole Horn
Written pitch. There is no scored bar here because this instrument has no standard compass — the range is a property of the model, not of the player.
The xylophone is written in treble clef, and it has no standard written range. How low and how high it goes is decided by how many bars the instrument has, which differs from model to model — so the honest answer to “what is its range” is another question: which instrument?
What does not vary is the notation, and that is the part worth memorising, because it is where parts actually go wrong.
The xylophone is a C instrument: it sounds an octave higher. Every note in the written range moves by that same interval, so the sounding range is the written range shifted whole — concert C5 to C7. Nothing is compressed or stretched; a range is transposed exactly the way a single note is.
This is the figure that matters when a composer is checking whether a line fits, or a director is working out why the xylophone cannot play the part in front of it. The written range answers “can I read this”; the sounding range answers “will this be the pitch I wanted”.
| Note | Written | Sounds |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest learner-comfortable note | C4 | C5 |
| Highest learner-comfortable note | C6 | C7 |
There is no scored range here to compare against — the compass belongs to the instrument, not to a standard — so the learner range is the only span this page can give, and it is the one that matters for writing a part a section can play. The Whole Horn treats C4 to C6 as the learner-comfortable written compass of the xylophone, sounding concert C5 to C7.
That is a range, not a fence. It is where a developing player is secure enough that the note is not the hard part — not a boundary the instrument enforces and not a limit anyone should be told they have. Both ends move outward with practice, at different rates, and they move for different reasons at the top than at the bottom. A student who cannot reach C6 today is not outside the range; they are on their way to it.
There is no standard ceiling to give. The bars either exist on the instrument in front of you or they do not, so this page publishes the common sizes rather than a single figure.
Like every mallet instrument, the xylophone's range is the instrument's, not the player's — and unlike the vibraphone it is not standardised. Concert instruments run about 3½ to 4 octaves; the classroom instruments most students meet are far smaller. The other thing to hold onto is the notation: the xylophone sounds an octave above what is written, so a part that looks comfortably mid-staff is speaking an octave higher than it reads.
No scored range is published here. Wikipedia's xylophone article gives the size but not a single fixed compass: “concert xylophones are typically 3½ or 4 octaves”, and smaller classroom instruments are about 1½ octaves. Because the starting note follows the model rather than a standard, no scored range is published here.
The learner-comfortable range — written C4 to C6 — is The Whole Horn's own instrument table, the one the app itself reads. Its header states the contract: lo/hi = WRITTEN MIDI, learner-comfortable.
The sounding range is derived here from the written figures by interval, not stored — a stored second copy is a copy that can disagree with the first.
The xylophone has no standard range — the compass is a property of the model rather than of the player. The Whole Horn treats C4 to C6 written as the learner-comfortable compass, sounding concert C5 to C7.
There is no standard highest note for the xylophone. Its compass is set by how many bars the instrument has, which varies by model, so the answer depends on the instrument in the room. The Whole Horn treats C6 as the highest learner-comfortable written note.
There is no standard lowest note, because it depends on the size of the instrument. The Whole Horn treats C4 written as the lowest learner-comfortable note, sounding concert C5.
The Whole Horn's learner-comfortable written range for the xylophone is C4 to C6, sounding concert C5 to C7. That is where a developing player is secure, not a fence — the ends move outward with practice, and they move at different rates for different players.
No. The xylophone sounds an octave higher, so every note sounds higher than it is written — written C4 sounds concert C5.
It depends on the instrument rather than the player, and the common sizes differ. The Whole Horn's learner-comfortable span is C4 to C6.
The Whole Horn plays all twelve major scales in the xylophone's own written pitch and treble clef, so what you read is what you play.
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